Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 611 | How Woke Ideology Has Ruined Therapy | Guest: Dr. Sally Satel

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

Today we're talking to psychiatrist Dr. Sally Satel about how woke ideology and progressivism are working their way into the mental health field. We talk about the consequences of therapists and other mental health professionals using leftist ideology when treating their patients and how harmful it is when you absolve people of any responsibility for their issues and instead blame systemic issues and society as a whole. Dr. Satel explains how this happened and how this kind of therapy is ineffective at helping people work through their problems. At a time when mental health problems are ripping through young people, the last thing we need to be doing is feeding them woke platitudes from Instagram or TikTok. --- Today's Sponsors: Cozy Earth — for a limited time save 35% off your order at CozyEarth.com/ALLIE & enter promo code 'ALLIE' at checkout. Raycon — go to BuyRaycon.com/ALLIE to save 15% off your Mother's Day order! Birch Gold — text 'ALLIE' to 989898 to get a free info kit on gold! Dwell — visit DwellApp.io/RELATABLE to save 10% off a yearly subscription or save 33% off Dwell for life! --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise — use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Wednesday. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. American Meat delivered right to your front door. Go to Good Ranchers.com slash alley. That's good ranchers.com slash alley. I've got an amazing and fascinating conversation for you today. I am talking to Dr. Sally Sotel. She is a psychiatrist who focuses on addiction, drug use, rehabilitation, but she's written a lot, especially over the past couple of years, about how woke ideology, how progressivism is really pervading, not just psychiatry, but really medicine in general.

We're going to talk about the consequences of that, the consequences of an overemphasis on victimization, how this idea of placing people on some kind of intersectionality scale, how critical race theory is really harming psychiatrist's ability to treat people as individuals. And we'll talk about counseling and how counseling is being characterized by this as well and potentially harming people and keeping people away from getting mental health care that they need because of this wokeism and people's fear of being treated by a therapist who would be hostile to their conservative or their, in our case, Christian views. So we're going to talk about all of this, kind of where this came from.

And we're going to focus a lot on this loss of agency that seems to be infecting, not just this industry, but the world, assuming that everyone's issues are, there are problem of some grand systemic problem rather than a problem of an individual's choices and how that can negatively impact our world in people's mental health. And just kind of putting this all into context, the mental health numbers that we see, especially among young people, are really not good. They're really not good. If we're looking back at 2020, we see a 31% increase in health related emergency department visits for kids ages 12 through 17. For young adults, we are seeing 3.8 million had serious thoughts of suicide in 2020. And then recently there was an article

written by the New York Times talking about this epidemic among young people of thoughts of suicide and depression. And of course, the New York Times doesn't come to the same conclusions that you and I would. It does talk about social media a little bit. And the problem and of course the pandemic. But also I think that we would conclude that there is just a loss of purpose. There is a loss of community. There's a loss of fellowship. And from our Christian perspective, there is a loss of faith. There is godlessness that seems to be pervading the younger generations. Actually, we know for a fact that it is. Pew Research does research on this regularly and the loss of church and religious affiliation among young people is dramatic.

And we're not focusing on the younger generations in our conversation with Dr. Sital today, but I think it is very indicative of where we are as a country as far as how we are serving people in the mental health industry. We talk about on this podcast a lot, I wrote a book about it, how it seems to be the solution to all of our problems. We are told on Instagram, we are told by people like Briné Brown, we are told by the popular authors that are kind of targeting women and in particular Christian women that really fundamentally our biggest problem

is that we don't love ourselves enough, that we don't empower ourselves enough, that we don't think about ourselves enough. And anything that inhibits us from being able to put ourselves first is a form of trauma. that we are really victims of most things, if not all things that happen in our lives. How's that working out for us? How's that working out for us? Is that kind of mentality really pushing us towards viable solutions to make sure that we are not riddled with anxiety and depression that we are stable and sane people? It doesn't seem to be helping very much at all. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that today. At the beginning of our conversation,

I'll ask her that question. How is pop psychologist? and this focus on ourselves, how is that affecting, how is that affecting the therapy world? How is that affecting us as people and as a society? You're going to love this conversation. She's a fascinating and brilliant person who is doing very unique and counter popular narrative work in this space. And I always appreciate those voices. And I know you do too.

So without further ado, here is our new friend, Dr. Sally Sattel. Dr. Sattel, thank you so much for joining us. I have read many of your articles, listened to lots of interviews that you have done. We're going to talk about a few things today that you've covered. But I want to start with a question that I know my audience has, majority women. We are met with a lot of Instagram psychology, a lot of advice on how we need to deal with all of our problems and it seems to go back to this one prescription. And that is that we just need to think about ourselves more. We just need to think that we are more awesome and wonderful and that all of our problems are a result of some kind of victimhood, of other people, of society, of our circumstances.

There seems to be a real aversion to talking about any kind of responsibility that we might have in the problems that we face. Everything comes back to just a lack of self. love. So I would love to hear you talk about that. Is that something that you see kind of in the therapy world in general? What are your thoughts? Well, my first thought is I wouldn't do therapy with a stranger who talks to me over Instagram. And the main reason is because, you know, one prescription and one diagnosis, so to speak, never applies to everyone. So right there, you're almost violating one of the tenets of real psychotherapy, which is a highly individualized kind of enterprise where the therapist gets to know the person. And, you know, some people probably do.

I don't doubt that there's a great deficit of, you know, self-love. I wouldn't call it that, but that's not the term I use, but basically a feeling of self- or a lack of the feeling of self-worth. And that can be devastating. I mean, that is, that is. What can lead, not always by any means, but, you know, can lead to necessarily clinical depression, but a perversive, pervasive feeling of demoralization, can lead to drug use, can lead. I mean, that is a problem. But A, you can't assume it. And B, you certainly can't assume that it's due to victimization by parents, by husbands, you know, wise, by others, by society. Now it's, you know, of course, much systemic, you know, oppression. And, and even if that might be true, which is something I would only know after I talk, get to know someone, then I would not encourage them to dwell on it, which is another problem that seems to be part of this worldview, which is that, hey, you've been victimized. And so you're entitled. And so really, you don't have

to do anything. You don't have to take any responsibility because you're, the victim. Listen, to be honest, some people are victimized. There's no question about it. But the real purpose of therapy is just to show people how to put that in context, to rise above it, to make sense of it in their life in some way, to not let it, it'll change them. Any kind of victimization changes a person, but not to damage them. Right. It seems to me, just as a person observing all of this, it seems to me to be an overcorrection because, of course, there's a problem of self-loathing and self-hatred and that, to me, it would make sense that that could lead to different forms of addiction and demoralization and anxiety, of course. But the constant focus, at least that we hear

on Instagram in pop culture, on what I would call kind of a glorified narcissism, that nothing really cares. Nothing really matters. Your relationships. don't matter if they are not perfectly serving your wants in every moment of every day. That doesn't seem to be working because we've been told this for a while now for years. And yet our mental health, our state of mental health as a country, particularly, I would say people under 40, seems to be worse than it's ever been. I mean, my generation millennials have been told our whole lives that everything should revolve around us, that we deserve a trophy no matter. what we've done. And yet, it's not translating into us feeling better about ourselves or our lives. So do you see that kind of relationship that the more we're forced to just focus on ourselves constantly,

that it's actually making us feel worse rather than better? Yes, you can easily see how that could happen. First, this prescription for selfishness. And we know that one of the great things people can do to make themselves feel better is to help others. So you want to direct as much of your attention outside yourself as you can. A, at the very least, it's distracting, so you're not ruminating about your problems, but it also helps others, and that's very gratifying. And as you know, and, you know, AA and other kinds of self-help, that's one of the tenets of it, is that it's a fellowship where you're helping others and connected to others. And the other problem, with focusing so much on yourself is that everything is

blown out of proportion. Every little slight is taken as evidence of I'm not lovable or that person is terrible. Right. It's just distorts your whole, you know, view of frankly of others because you'll people are always attuned to the negative much more than the positive unfortunately but I think we're wired that way as as you know through evolution. We always have to be on alert And it blinds you to, for example, that what you might be doing. I mean, listen, this is one of the purposes of therapy. I mean, there's therapy for people.

I'm a psychiatrist, so we deal, well, my personal interest is people who are really mentally old. For example, they have psychotic problems. So their symptom, you know, we want to get rid of the hallucinations and the delusions and that kind of thing. But in the kind of therapy you're talking about, you know, which is for people at problems in living or even people who are very, very distressed. But, you know, one of the things is to, as I say, not only get out of yourself, but to have develop some insight and introspection. So you can see how you sabotage yourself. I mean, that is such a big part of psychotherapy is to help people understand how unwittingly.

they're working against their own best interest. And again, if you have this mindset of blaming everybody else, it's not conducive to gaining much, to not being introspective. So it's just destructive on so many levels. I mean, when you get to know a patient, and again, we're not talking about a patient relationship on Instagram, I mean, you listen to folks, you basically spend the first several sessions listening to them blame everybody else.

But then, you know, because you can't challenge someone out of the gate, you know, you want to develop a relationship that you're, you know, concerned and you're open to their, you know, their perspectives and their complaints. But then you start if they're open-minded and if they're not psychologically minded, why are they in therapy at all? If people are so awful to them or if they've really been so misused by the system, they need a lawyer and not a psychiatrist. I mean, our job is to, again, is to help people cultivate a kind of. of a posture of self observation. Why do you think a segment of psychiatry, whether it's just pseudo-psychiatrist online or whether it's an actual therapist in the office,

why do you think it's moved this direction towards taking all agency away from someone and trying to soothe someone's anxiety or depression or distress simply by blaming systems outside of them, blaming other people, and basically just telling them that everything that they're doing is right. And any of the problems that they're facing really can be placed on other people's feet. Like, what ideology or what trend is moving mental health medicine in that direction, if you think it really is going that direction?

I don't see going that direction in psychiatry. But look, a lot of these people, let's say, to be honest, well, good psychiatry. Yeah. And that is a big qualifier, I realize. But, you know, if you're not trained, then you're going to imbibe all these cultural tropes, you know, which has been, you know, victimhood. And as you said, everybody gets a trophy and everyone needs self-esteem. Well, you have to earn self-esteem. Yes, of course, there's a basic level of, you know, self-worth.

Everyone should have. But above that, you know, you have to earn these things. And I think that some of these therapists are probably extremely, I'll just say it, they're just immature. And it's gratifying to them to have the kind of gratitude that the public would perhaps offer them, because that's a very quick way to get, to have people be grateful to you and to attract them, is to exonerate them. I mean, everyone wants to be exonerated. I do. I don't want to sometimes take responsibility for, you know, or acknowledge that I may be contributing to the, to the trouble I'm in or trouble I, or the distress I feel. But, but that's, again, that's, that's the mature stance. And, you know, part of therapy is to learn how to deliver some of these hard truths, but in a, you know, in a respectful and caring way. I mean, so much about the training is, is, is, learning how to deliver these, you know, ask these questions about, well, maybe, you know, did you ever thought of maybe there's something you're doing? You don't quite realize it,

but what might you be doing that maybe elicits this response all the time? Because it seems to be a pattern. I mean, clearly, if something's a pattern, that's your, you know, that's your wedge into helping the person become curious about, gee, you know, maybe, hmm, why is this happening to me all the time? Could I possibly be contributing to it in some way? And all that takes time. And it can't possibly be just, you know, in a Instagram. Isn't Instagram like several? It's really short, right? You can't get into any detail or. It's mostly graphics. Subtilety. Yes. It's mostly kind of graphics that people, there's just a lot of, even if the people posting these things don't consider themselves therapists in some way, it's just a lot of very trite phrases that I think people internalize in. they think counts for like helping their mental health things like if, you know, if someone thinks you're too much, they should just go find less and you need to cut all the toxic people

out of your life and you deserve more. And maybe those things are true in some people's situation, whatever. But as you mentioned, the people that are posting those graphics for likes, which you just said, that's why they do it because people like to feel exonerated. And so if you're posting these things on Instagram, people are going to follow you because you make them feel better about their circumstances, perhaps, because you are kind of alleviating any responsibility they may feel. But it's all of just these little trite mantras and sayings that are, they're aimed at making women feel better about themselves. But at the end of the day, I think it really just makes a lot of people more selfish and justify their selfishness

as saying it's a form of like growth and maturity. But really it's just, it's actually the opposite. It's immaturity because they're blaming everyone else for their problems. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. But it seems to be linked. It seems to be linked to an ideology that you've talked about a lot that seeks to remove agency from people and put it on systems. And you kind of got in, quote unquote, like trouble, maybe a controversy for this at Yale University last year when you were talking about the open. epidemic. You gave a lecture at the Department of Psychiatry there at Yale, and you talked about

both the internal and external factors that can lead to substance abuse, but there was an unidentified group of concerned Yale psychiatry residents who took issue with what you said, basically said that it was racist, that it was classist, and I don't know, I guess that you didn't blame the system quite enough. Can you talk about what happened there and how that may be indicative of something pernicious that's happening in psychiatry as a whole? Well, this is happening in medicine as a whole. It's very worrisome to me. It's what I call it kind of a woke intrusion.

I always sent to quotes around woke because people criticize you for that not being real issue. Well, it is a real. It certainly is a real issue. And the way it often manifests, again, is that frankly, almost every problem in the case of medicine, and it's a health problem, is due to systemic forces. And, you know, look, again, sometimes, I'm not saying it, that's not never the case. The question is, what are psychiatr is supposed to do about it? We can diagnose, we can treat, and believe me, doctors don't get to spend enough time with patients.

That's the real, one of the real problems. But, you know, we can inform policymakers about the kind of external forms. forces that affect health and hopefully they can enact some reforms. But we already have a job. And if the public sees this as to politicize, it's really going to damage our credibility. So, but one of the big themes, that was pretty 100,000 feet. But, you know, one of the big themes is that in this talk, well, this talk I gave was about a year I spent in this, a fairly small town in southeastern Ohio. It's called Ironton for anyone who's may have heard of it. And I was just back visiting. And it's a town of 10,000. And it's in some ways, like so many of the towns,

you know, we've read about where the, you know, the economy is struggling and, and drug abuse is a huge problem. And now the opioid crisis has largely moved on to fentanyl, which is very deadly. So lots of overdoses. It's really very tragic. So, right, I was talking about, addiction, which I frankly think is kind of more productive to see as a symptom, even than a disease, because it often points to something a person is trying to either medicate within themselves, or if they live in a community that appears to hold no future for them, as I said, is economically distressed where the educational system is so bad, when their parents have drug problems as well. and you know, you live in places where you feel trapped.

That in itself, I think we've heard of deaths of the despair. Well, these are lives of despair. And that also makes drugs look attractive. But we also know how that most people recover. Actually, that's not known, but most people actually recover. And they recover without professional help. But I'm not arguing you shouldn't get professional help. Anyway, so I was talking about this.

And then afterwards, one of the residents said he was offended, offended because I talked about agency and addiction. And right. And that didn't I know that people were basically using drugs because of systemic forces. And, you know, again, even if they are, then what's the, then what's. the solution to that for us as psychiatrists. I said, well, our job, you know, I'm trying to remind him really as nicely as I could, but, you know, our job is to take those remnants of agency that everyone has. I mean, even when you're in the midst of addiction, you make all kinds of choices, you know, is this the day, you know, I, you know, a lot of people who are addicted are actually

fairly functional. I think we have this sense that there are people who are just strung out, nodding out all day. And some people are, but that's not typically, you know, people do things. Actually, people hold jobs. Now, probably not as well as we think they, you know, they don't work. They're not the best workers necessarily, but they do. Or they go pick up their kids from school, or does your dad pick up you from school or, you know, or whatever, you know, all these kinds of choices people can make. And, you know, those choices, of course, could be today is the day I go to treatment. The problem is so many people who've, used drugs for so long, already were attracted to drugs because of some sort of pain that they

were trying to medicate. And I don't mean physical. I mean psychological. And then there's a second layer of distress that's built up by all the trouble and problems that have been generated because of the addiction, all the friends you've lost, all the relationships you've burned, all the jobs you may lost, the money you spent, the health that, you know, you may have lost because of it. And that in itself is so distressing that it becomes even harder to stop. So I'm very sensitive to the notion that it can be very hard to break the habit, but people do do it all the time. And they do it by largely by us being able to, you know, show them that there's some kind of hope and there's some kind of help so they can feel that they can do it. And there are strategies called

relath prevention and we have medications. If it's an opioid problem, you can be methadone, ibupinorphine, all these things to break the cycle, and then start helping people rebuild their lives. But I told him, I feel I'm going on here, but I basically told this kid, I mean, he was 24-year-old, I'm sure. That's a kid, yeah. A resident that, well, thank goodness, there is some traces of agencies still left, because that's what we can work on. And that is our job to help people basically, you know, weave those tatters into a tapestry of self of mastery because that's really, you know, again, unless we're talking the severely mentally ill folks and, you know, real symptom relief, you know, that's ultimately what we are talking about is the kind of self-control that lets you have more choices. And so you don't feel, you know, constrained that there's only one way for me to act. act, that you can step back and see that there's an array of things you can do. And, I mean, that's the ultimate freedom, but that only comes with responsibility and self-control. I mean,

that seems, I think, somehow counterintuitive to some people, but you have, you have more freedom when you have self-discipline. And, you know, this is a Christian podcast. And so people listening to this know that self-control is a fruit of the spirit. Self-control. And, you know, and you know, is something that Christians are supposed to dawn and supposed to emulate. And unfortunately, I do kind of see a lot of Christians fall into this woke ideology of only blaming other things for people's problems. And as you said, it's not either or. It really is both and.

And you've talked about this problem within psychiatry or I guess, as you said earlier, in medicine as a whole of removing agency and taking away a doctor. responsibility to more look at the more proximate causes of what's going on and to kind of just become activists and experts and things that you guys didn't go to school for, like housing and things like that. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't care about that. But what I've heard you talk about is that trying to get doctors to only look at these big systemic problems, potential systemic problems or verified systemic problems, and taking them away from actually treating the symptoms that are right in front of you and looking at the possibility of agency

and the role that it plays in a person's problems, that's actually hurting the industry as a whole, correct? Well, it's a very worrisome experiment that's going on. I mean, you mentioned, for example, housing. Now, we know that especially for kids, you know, some of this public housing and other kinds of really, you know, poor quality housing, lots of roaches, lots of mold, lots of allergens, and for kids with asthma, that's terrible. And it was important research that doctors and other scientists did to discover what kinds of,

what kinds of irritants are out there and are part of housing, and I'm sure ventilation is not good in these places. And that was an important research. I'm not saying that by no means should that not have been done. That's very important. And that has to be, and people who run housing, you know, housing systems have to know that. And doctors should even, frankly, ask about that. You know, if the kid comes in with these problems, you know, where are you living and is there mold?

I think that's perfectly reasonable for a doctor to ask. And that then goes to the social worker. Listen, we have to try to help, you know, get this family a better house. We could even report it. There's nothing wrong with that, reporting it to the housing authority. But to take on housing policy, you know, is absurd. It's a distraction from what we do. Plus, we don't know how to do it.

That's not what we're trained in. And also, since, to be honest, so many doctors these days are quite progressive, they might have a different notion of how one fixes. housing policy that might be, you know, in a direction that is, you know, frankly, not compatible with the, you know, the general view of patients, which is, why is my doctor getting so involved with this? They should be spending their time, you know, with me. That may sound like a slightly tortured example, but honestly, if you read, you know, it's a new publication from the American Medical Association and others, they truly want doctors, or they,

urge doctors to, you know, dismantle racism. And I mean, I don't even, frankly, I don't know quite what that means. I'm not denying that there is some, but I'm not denying that there's remnants of systemic racism, probably still some that's active, not denying that. And as a citizen, I'm a doctor, but as a citizen, if that were my passion, then I should work on it all my spare time. That's completely fine. But framing them as part of the mission of medicine is really destructive. My mission is not to be a social justice warrior. My mission is to treat health. I mean, treat illness. And my identity, again, would be that of a healer, not an activist. That's something I can do at my own time, for sure. But that's not part of my identity as a physician.

and there's a real effort to try to change that. And I mean, here's just one example. You know, folks who have diabetes, and this is overrepresented in minority populations, you know, some people need insulin, some people need other medications. But everyone, even the one, even folks who don't need the medication, can control it with diet and exercise. and these kinds of self-elements of self-care that, you know, doctors have to bring to their attention. You know, these are other things you can do

to control your, you know, control your diabetes. I personally find it just, it's still unbelievable to me that a doctor, once the door is closed and once they're with the individual patient, would not bring these up because they require, you know, they require initial. on the part of the patient.

And of course, if we're conceptualizing every patient as a victim of systemic injustice, then that, you know, that doesn't fit. But, but that is practically what is being, that the nature of some of the discussions are such that you could get in trouble for that. I was in a discussion, or excuse me, a colleague was in a discussion about the, you know, awful increase in suicidal and depression and suicide. depression and suicide in young black teens. I mean, the rate of increase there is higher than in any other group. The absolute prevalence of suicide is less, but the increase is higher than in any other group.

And the only explanations that were entertained was that of, again, systemic racism and police brutality, not about, and we weren't allowed to talk about, you know, what do I mean allowed. Well, you would basically get a lot of criticism from your colleagues. But to talk about bullying in school, which is just awful for some kids, and the violence in the neighborhoods, which is utterly terrifying. But that was not considered a legitimate hypothesis about what could be going on in this community to contribute to the distress and hopelessness of these kids. that's dangerous. Gosh, my mind is bursting with so many things. When you start with the premise of critical race theory, which is basically in crude forms that all white people are oppressors and all

black or brown people are oppressed by these oppressors. And if that really does characterize how you diagnose someone and how you look at the causes of their problems, I mean, that's going to lead to disparate treatments. It also could lead to wrong treatments because you're not willing to look at the real problems at hand, like you mentioned, if a young black man, if he is suicidal, because he's actually being bullied by people of his own race, but you're not allowed to look at that because it has to be some form of white oppression, well, then you're going to miss the problem and you could miss the diagnosis and you can miss the treatment of that person could suffer. And really, gosh, we see this in so many areas when it comes to this so-called anti-racist work

that you have to assume that the problem is white supremacy. And again, that's not to say that that racism is never the problem. But if you assume that, then you could actually miss the other issues that are at hand and you fail to address the real problems that are causing this group to suffer. We've talked, and I've heard you talk about this a little bit, but we've talked about this before about how the maternal mortality rate among black women is higher than that of any other group. And, you know, there are probably various reasons for that. But the assumption, the only assumption, the only assumption that I've heard is that it is systemic racism, that it's racism against these black women. I'm not sure. The CDC also says, like, the number one cause for maternal mortality is high blood pressure and heart disease. And I know that to be, we know that to be more prevalent among the African American population. So maybe that's part of it. But something that I found interesting in my research is that actually the number one cause of maternal mortality that is not included in the CDC numbers is homicide. And it is, about eight times more likely among black women who are pregnant than women of other races. And I think

it's three times more likely when those black women are pregnant versus when they're not pregnant. And it is typically by a domestic partner. That's one example of, okay, we're focusing only on the problem of potential systemic racism. We'll look at this huge problem over here that is actually much more prevalent and killing many more women, more black women in particular, than, And this problem. I'm not saying we can't focus on both, but when you are missing this huge problem over here because you only want to focus on systemic racism, people are going to die because of that. Like you're creating more victims. So I'm just interested to hear, you know, more of your thoughts, not necessarily on that, but how this idea is dangerous and manifesting itself

in the industry that you're in. Oh, it's very dangerous. Apparently we're not, I don't work in a hospital, but I've been told that doctors shouldn't even, bring up obesity. My goodness, it's just, it's unconscionable. I've noticed it more in collegiality, actually, that there's every, you know, there's people are sensitized to, or younger people, there's a generational dimension to this, but, you know, sensitized to microaggressions where, I mean,

that, obviously we should also treat each other with, respect and concern and try to always give people the benefit of the doubt. But basically, a microaggression is a very, it's truly in the eye of the beholder. And so, but these things are just completely taken out of context and colleagues are walking on eggshells. And some of my, some of my colleagues are to the extent they have discretionary time that they can spend teaching versus, let's say going, being in their lab or, you know, writing or something, they will not choose to spend that at a time interacting with residents and medical students out of fear that they're going just to step on some sort of, that they'll commit a microaggressor because,

you know, step on some landmine like I did. I mean, those students asked the chairman to revoke my, you know, appointment and, you know, good for him that he did. didn't, of course, but that's their, you know, that's their solution to things is, oh, my talk took place on January 8th, 2001. So they said that I retramatized them after January 6th. The other retromat, apparently the other thing that was so offensive was to call my talk my year abroad and then, you know, about being in this town. And that wasn't, you know, because to them that was so other.

and so dismissive. And I thought, well, that's an interesting, you know, way to think about it. Maybe I'll be more sensitive to it in the future. But let me tell you other, let me tell you my intent behind it, you know, the idea that we all live in one country, and yet there are so many differences. And that trope of my year abroad is almost always heard in the context of, I had a fascinating experience. I met new people.

My horizons were broad, you know. But there was no tolerance of this, you know, these alternative explanations. So it's that, plus there are certain things you can't question. There was a professor at the University of Pittsburgh medical school, brilliant man, a cardiac electrophysiologist who was beloved teacher. And he wrote a very scholarly article that was peer reviewed in the Journal of the American Heart Association. questioning affirmative action in medical schools and presented the data showing that,

you know, for, you know, reasons of being folks just not being not prepared, nothing about their basic, you know, worth as people, just that, you know, they often come into medical school or residency, you know, just less prepared than, let's say, well, white students is largely a black, white thing, and take longer to graduate and come in with poorer scores and all this, that he was questioning whether this is a policy, God knows he's not the first, that we should, you know, that medical schools should pursue because, you know, advanced education is not the place where you compensate for people who, sadly, have been, you know, not trained, you know, not given the best primary school educations, and that compounds itself. And, you know, people get

you know, passed on in school without having mastered certain things. Anyway, point is he was fired for this. Yeah. He was lost his, the chairman, excuse me, he lost the directorship of his fellowship. I'm the state of that. He wasn't fired from being a doctor from the school, but he lost his directorship of the fellowship. And he's not allowed to have contact with residents or medical students. And here he is, this brilliant, teacher who's won awards. And I mean, that's insane. The same thing with some researchers who are looking into genetic differences that may, in one case, may translate it into why, I mean, there were probably many reasons. And some of them definitely were class reasons of the kinds

of jobs. People have the fact they had to take transportation, public transportation. But, you know, why African Americans were disproportionately felt by COVID. lots of reasons, but one of them might actually have been, I mean, we'll get into it in depth, but basically some sort of genetically mediated metabolic dynamic in lung function. And that was written up, I believe it was in JAMA, Sherald of the American Medical Association. And there was all kinds of pushback because we're not allowed to explore genetic differences. that may associate with race. And of course I have to underline associate

because every educated person knows there are no discrete racial, excuse me, genetic differences between race. But there are differences in what's called gene frequencies. In other words, how common a certain gene might be, a gene that might predisposed to illness, based on where one's ancestral heritage is. I mean, the classic one being sickle cell, that people whose ancestors have grown up in the Mediterranean or African region can have more susceptibility.

To your point, I was actually just reading an article because I met a young woman recently whose son was born premature. He had sickle cell anemia. And gosh, it was just so hard listening to her and what they're going through. And I decided to just do some research on it just to find out more about it. I knew it was more prevalent among African Americans. but the article that I found was actually debunking the myth that it's more prevalent in African Americans because it seemed like because of what you're saying that for some reason you're not allowed to talk about that that is somehow racist. But to me, that would lead to worse care for for black people

because I mean, the doctor's not even allowed to see something that's true because it might come across as prejudiced in some way. That's crazy. Yes. I mean, one thing I've seen people complain about is it's not just an African-American affliction. And that is true. It could be a Mediterranean flitch. Okay, well, that's good to know. But we have to know this about people who are from Greek heritage, you know, as well.

It's more information. And, you know, of course, some, you know, it has echoes, to me, very diminished echoes, but to some people, obviously, louder echoes of eugenics, you know, this kind of stuff. But we are well past that. We have very, very vibrant bioethics, you know, bioethical, we're all very, very, very sensitive to, you know, to these histories. And, you know, in fact, of course, with the vaccine, you would hear, it's funny, I heard both things, but you would. here, well, I'm hesitant to take the vaccine because of Tuskegee. And then I heard black people say, oh, stop it. Yeah. That's, you know, they'd say, oh, come on, that's just, people just say that

as an excuse. But other people seem sincere. And every time, you know, there were an article in the New York Times, which always gets a million comments, I mean, it would be interesting. And I did look through them. And there were a number of people, you know, identified as African American and said, I'm not going near that and they invoked Tuskegee. And so to them, I think they were sincere and it was real. So what do we do about that? Well, I mean, one very common and often effective strategy is to enlist pastors and other people who are respected in the community to try to demystify, you know, these interventions in this case, a vaccine. But to, you know, help folks realize that, that, you know, those days are passed and white people are taking the vaccine.

So obviously, if it were so dangerous, you know, they wouldn't be doing it. And I took it and nothing happened to me and this kind of thing. But, you know, so those specters are still around and they flare up from time to time. But, you know, they should never, never be used to suppress information or to suppress research that's done in good faith. Never. Right. And I just want to clarify for people that our point really isn't about the vaccine. There's plenty of controversy about the vaccine and side effects and things like that.

The point is that when any industry is basically saying that all or like this fear of microaggressions towards people of one group that is considered marginalized is actually inhibiting. is actually inhibiting medical professionals from treating these people in a way that is right, in a way that has to do with the actual causes and the actual symptoms that they are seeing before them. When you kind of move outward and say, I'm only allowed to look at these kind of systemic issues and you become an activist rather than a healer, then we have a problem. And it kind of is, oh, I love hearing the little meow. That's cute.

It's kind of indicative of everything that we're seeing that if you don't say that a disparity is caused by discrimination, that there are possible other causes for this disparity, then you are considered an unempathetic person. Like what? How did this? How did this start? How did it start that people, that that kind of activism started pervading the medical industry and that everything just became some kind of symptom of trauma. everything is considered trauma nowadays. How did that start? And how did it really start infiltrating the industry that you're in in medicine in general?

Well, in about 1990, there was a concept called Social Determinance of Health. I mean, it was coined as a concept. Obviously, it's been around forever. And it's very legitimate. And when I was in medical school, I don't think we spent enough time on considering, we mentioned these earlier, but considering these other dimensions that affect help

and affect people's ability to, you know, what kinds of choices they have about their health. Like just for example, it might never occur to, I mean, I'm a psychiatrist, I don't give medications that need to be refrigerated,

but some medications need to be in a refrigerator. Right. And it would never, you know, often never occur to a doctor to, to, to, to, to, to, to, require, do you have, you know, is your electricity working? Do you have people living in your household who might steal your medication? And those things are, you know, important. Do you have transportation? You know, you're going to have to come back. I'm going to have to check this

dressing, you know, if you've burned yourself and now, you know, put dressing on it and an antibiotic cream. That's going to have to be changed and check to make sure it doesn't get affected. It never heard of them that the person couldn't come back because they had no, you know, there's an older person, let's say, you know, they couldn't come back. So because they have to take three buses or they lived in a place where there wasn't, you know, good public transportation, these things are important. You don't have enough money to, you know, sometimes certain diets are indicated. and they're more expensive.

I mean, these things are very, very important. And I don't think doctors often paid enough attention to be fair. And they should have, and I think they do now. And that was called social determinants of health. But over time, that got, I said, I once used the word, just got perverted into this view that people have a completely, at the mercy of their environments and have no control at all.

And after George Floyd, the murder of George Floyd, this just took off. We're now, most medical schools have courses on implicit bias training, which we know there's been ample research that shows implicit, the implicit association test, which supposedly measures racist attitudes, is completely illegitimate in terms of predicting

how people interact with minority individuals. But that's required in some medical schools. Some departments of health are requiring that in order to get your license renewed or get your license, you have to take this. It's a waste of time and it draws attention, again, to this conflict, as if it's pervasive, this struggle between race.

races and it's frankly, it's pernicious, but it's a waste of time. And so this became, after again, George Floyd, this just became a big thing with medical schools dedicating themselves to the phrase, of course, is dismantling racism. Some of that's posturing, I'm sure of it, but, but some of it's not. And it makes me wonder what they're displacing in the basic curriculum, which, just very packed, you know, to offer these courses in intersectionality. And it's just, it is not relevant. No one's saying that there aren't some cultural differences,

and especially if you work with populations that are immigrant populations, this is social, this is anthropology. And you will, you should know some of it. You should know what the dietary habits are. You should know in general how certain cultures, think about illness and what some home remedies might be because, you know, some of them might be even actually harmful sometimes. But that's important stuff. So that goes into the term cultural competence, which is fine.

That's a kind of almost organic knowledge you should have and would come to have more. Would you work with immigrant population? So that's all fine. But again, this, now it's turned into a very, almost a kind of intolerance and a kind of, you know, almost surveillance of, you know, almost surveillance of having to look at everything through the lens of, again, you know, racism or oppression. And, you know, it's something we should all be sensitized to because that is a reality of life, but not have it dominant. our worldview and distort it. Yeah. It prevents us in general, but I would imagine psychiatrists specifically from seeing people

as individuals and really looking at their problems. Well, that gets into a whole other issue, and you probably don't have time for it, but I'll mention it briefly, and then you can tell people where to read more about it, but not so much in psychiatry, but in the counseling profession, there is a very, very, very aggressive effort to introduce what a colleague of might as called like social justice therapy, there's kind of no name for it. But it's it's it is extremely worrisome. And it is just as you started to say, it's this view of the patient, not as an individual, but as a member of the group, whatever identity group he or she is a member of. And it's it's a kind of approach, a kind of

therapeutic, you know, sort of movement where, where the therapist kind of comes into the session with almost a preformed script or narrative of what's going on. So, for example, if you're a minority patient and you're a client, they would call them, but, you know, when you're complaining about your boss, you know, it could well be your boss is prejudiced against you. That could well be. But you don't, my goodness, you don't approach the person with this assumption that all your problems are due to a hostile environment. And if you're white, I mean, there've been lots of vignettes online about this, about, you know, white folk, especially white men, and God forbid they find out you voted for Trump, that you're pathological. You know, just based on that.

Of course, you're an oppressor out of the gate. Right. And, I mean, first off, this is not therapy. It's, it's ideal. I mean, it's, frankly, it's malpractice is what it is. But, and I've encouraged people to, to be honest, to sue. And for people who are in training programs where they're being inculcated with this kind of approach, I think they should sue for fraud that the program is really just not providing competent,

therapeutic training. But how do you have any kind of trusting relationships called a therapeutic alliance with a patient, a white kid who's walked in and wearing Mitzay, God forbid, a MAGA hat? And already, you're lecturing him? Right. And this is unheard of. I mean, it's a complete, it's unrecognizable of this therapy. And yet, as people are, you know, rolling their eyes going, I don't believe it.

Unfortunately, I can give you example. Well, I absolutely know what's happening because we're talking about some of those Instagram accounts earlier. And it seems like the whole therapy online world is absolutely the wokenest world and the quickest to categorize people based on these preconceived notions that's informed by these academic ideas like intersectionality and critical race theory, which don't necessarily translate to an individual circumstance. And I just think of two things in my own life. One, I had a counselor who helped me through an eating disorder when I was in. college. And then, too, I think about another thing. When I was, when I was young, I was a little bit of a tomboy in that I wouldn't wear dresses. And I had two older brothers and I didn't want to wear bows or anything like that. And I just think about if today's psychiatry or therapy world

had informed those two different situations in my life. Beyond testosterone now. Yeah. Right. Right. And like if the preconceived notions of, okay, well, this person is dealing with this. So it must be this without knowing anything about that person's, you know, individual circumstances or what they're dealing with. I mean, who knows if I would have been helped? If I would have just been considered some kind of oppressor or complicit in racism because I was white in college and I didn't actually get the individualized help that I needed with my eating disorder or if I had been young and they just assume because I don't want to wear dresses that I must be a boy. Like, who knows how my life would have turned out. But politics and these kind of the political priors of progressivism that so many,

medical professionals are using as they go in to treat patients. I mean, that really scares me. That just scares me for what kind of care people and especially young people are going to get. It's terrible. You come into therapy and you're there because you have a problem. You're there because you're often kind of shaken in some way. You're fragile and you're very vulnerable. and then you get someone whose whole therapeutic stance is shaped by ideology. It's really therapy for them. It's just, well, that's why I'm telling you, I really think that, you know, people should sue. I know that sounds fairly aggressive, and I've personally never sued anyone in my life.

But if I were subject to this, you know, I would. And there are some groups. that people, you know, can appeal to to try to get names of, I mean, I'm on some list serves where it says, you know, so-and-so has a patient who wants to work with, they'll use the phrase like a non-woke therapist. I mean, people going out of their way. Oh, I absolutely would. Assuming that this is the way they'll be approached. That's so unaluted. I know. It's crazy. But if I were looking for a counselor, even, you know, as a Christian, there are plenty of woke people who are, you know, in Christian therapy too. I would absolutely check to see.

I mean, this is just me. I'm not saying everyone should do this, but I would check to see if that person has pronouns in their profile, like what they're saying about things like gender and how they're approaching the subject of racism and social justice because I don't want to be hated. That's what I would fear. That I would be hated walking into a therapist office and that they wouldn't take me seriously because they just assume that I'm on the bad side because of my politics or my worldview or because of the color of my skin. I don't think we should have that kind of fear talking to people who want to help us. I'm scared that my views would be weaponized against me. So someone like me, I just won't seek help then. I just won't seek help because I'm too scared

that the institution has been so thoroughly captured that I'm going to be seen as the bad guy when I'm really trying to get help for a problem. I feel like I'm sure a lot of people feel that way, probably especially white men. That's probably, I would say, a problem. You just fear that you're going to be seen as the bad guy in all of this. Yeah, or have been seen and then drop, you know, and then drop out of therapies. So, pardon me, you're right. That's a major aversion. Pardon me to getting help. It's, it's so painful to think about, you know, someone who's who's who's, who's, desperate and they're in those hands. It's, it's, it's, yeah.

Anyway, it's just awful. Yeah. Well, just to kind of close out, I'm wondering if you can, if you can just like paint a picture, just summarize if the, both the positive and the negative, maybe the pessimistic and the optimistic outlook on how this could, how this could go. So if this continues to manifest itself, the loss of agency, the intersectionality and critical race theory kind of dominating someone view of therapy and psychiatry, like how would that look long term? But then also, if there's any positivity that you

see in this direction, any positive change in people kind of realizing that that's a problem and really trying to work towards giving good individualized care. So if you could just kind of show us the good and the bad, the possibility is the future of this. Well, actually, I think you summarize the bad, very eloquently a few minutes ago, that, you know, people realize they're not being, really, they're not being helped. I mean, basically, if, pardon me, you may see something on my computer there, to the extent that a patient finds this kind of gratifying, in other words, they want to hear this, that they're a victim, then in some ways you've got a support group of two. That's not therapy. That's not challenging someone. You know, in a,

in a constructive and gentle way, but people need to be challenged because, as we talked about earlier, they're often, often, not always, but often contributing to their problems. And, you know, ideally a person comes into therapy saying, you know, I feel, I want to understand what I may be doing to make myself or contribute to my, you know, unhappiness. I want to understand myself better. But then you need a therapist who says, well, that's an important question. And let me hear everything. I will sit back and listen probably for two to three sessions.

You know, really it's just gaining a lot of information, developing trust. That's how it should work. If that doesn't work, frankly, and you get told day one what your problem is, frankly, run for the hills. The good news is that, so I think patients, although God knows how much damage will be done before this happens, you know, we'll start to realize that this is not constructive. I'm not learning about myself. My life isn't changing. If anything, it's getting worse. But the good news right now is that there is a group that has formed kind of a almost a remedy to the American counseling.

Association, which is the professional organization for so many counselors, now there's a group called the International Association for Psychology and Counseling, International Association for Psychology and Counseling, which is a group that's been started by, frankly, a former president of the American Counseling Association who says, no ideology. There should be no ideology in counseling, short of what we, short of, of course, theory about what we know about the human mind and behavior and how people change. But that's fine. That's clearly what one is trained to do in these jobs. You know, one takes these jobs. And we will be a clearinghouse for training. And we could refer people if they, you know, need counselors who are, you know, classically professional. And so

that's, to me, that was very encouraging. Yes, that is an encouraging development that people are recognizing this and organizing to push back against it. It's going to be a battle. And so I'm hopeful, though, based on what you just said, and I'm hopeful that people like you exist and that you've been talking about this and writing about this for a long time. I agree. It should be without ideology, the goal is to help people. The goal is to heal people. And we can't do that. that if we are blinded by our preconceived notions of what we just assume they're dealing with based on our politics.

Right. Or turn them into activists, which is another agenda item. Man, and there's just so much there. That seems to be the problem, one problem in education, too. And just to touch on, I know we got to go. But one thing that you said earlier that I thought was so interesting and is my question too in like K through 12 education where we're seeing some of this ideology come about in the curriculum, you asked for.

psychiatry students, what is being displaced? What's being displaced by this over-emphasis on things like critical race theory and victimology? Because everything, you would probably argue that a psychiatrist has to learn just about psychiatry. That's a lot in itself. That's, you know, full time. I wonder the same thing about curriculum in K through 12 as they are having hour-long sessions about, you know, intersectionality. Like, okay, are you taking, how much time we're taking away from science? How much time we're taking away from math? How much time are you taking away from reading? And do our numbers show that kids, students in America need less of that? I don't think so. So gosh, this is such a pervasive problem and I'm very thankful for your voice

and how you're talking about it in such a professional and persuasive way. So thank you so much. Oh, thank you very much. Just to close this out, one thing that I wanted to make sure that we mentioned that I didn't get into with her because it wasn't a theological conversation. that we are having. But as Christians, one thing that I want to point out is that while I think that professional help when it comes to mental health is really important and necessary for a lot of people, I think medicine when it is necessary for people's problems, it's a gift of common grace that people should feel no shame when they need those treatments, when they need that care. They should feel no shame in taking part in those things. Ultimately, we believe that the answer

to our individual problems and to societal problems is the gospel. The reason why professional help, even though it can be so important, will ultimately fall short, is because it doesn't deal with the problem that is in our hearts. It doesn't deal with the real reason for a lot of the emptiness that we feel or the purposelessness or the loneliness that we feel. The only person who can truly tell us who we are is the God who created us, who tells us who we are and what we're. worth and why we're here who gives us the ultimate hope, not just moment by moment hope, but the

ultimate hope. And so if we really want to be known, if we want to be understood, if we want to know what it means to be accepted, if we want to know what it means to be truly loved, then we have to look at the gospel because in Christ, in Christ, we are accepted by this perfect holy God who created us and created the universe. In the gospel, we are giving. purpose. We are given hope, the hope of eternity in heaven, the hope of goodness and joy forevermore. And so the real ultimate, eternal antidote for any despair that we have. And this doesn't preclude, you know, tangible help here on earth, but it is the ultimate answer to all of the problems and the feelings of lack that we have here in this life is the God who created us,

is the gospel. So I would be remiss. If I didn't mention that in a conversation about all the problems that we're facing as individuals and as society, that only the God who made us can really truly know us, see us, fix us. And so in all of the steps that we take here in this life to help our mental health, let us not forget that the God who made us and loves us is the ultimate and eternal answer to all of our problems. All right. I hope that was an enlightening and encouraging conversation for all. of you. I will be back here tomorrow.

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where

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