I have to say, the word politics and the word therapy are not two words that I ever thought I would use in the same sentence. I never was one to talk politics, not even with my friends, although, it has always been a hot topic with family, but I never got involved. I never saw myself as knowing enough to offer an opinion. A lot of people say that, or used to anyway.

2016 Election

I remember where I was when America got the news that Donald Trump won the election of 2016. I was at a networking event in downtown Saint Louis, MO. We were mingling and eating hors d’oeuvres when it came on the news. Around that time I started my training in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). This is a therapeutic modality most often used for clients having experienced trauma looking for reduction in symptoms through brain based therapy. The first portion of the training is taught as lecture and then days later therapists break off into groups to practice the modality on each other. We are given a heads up and instructed to come up with something traumatic, but not too heavy (like that’s possible), that we would like to work on desensitizing in our practice therapy on each other. For the first time in my life, I heard someone say they were traumatized by the election of a president, in this case, Mr. Trump… I never considered being traumatized by an election before so I got curious about why this was affecting so many of our population, mostly women.

Division

I can only speak from my own experience but I felt division in our country starting around 2012. At least that’s what I noticed. That was about the time I was getting ready to enter the market as a therapist, so my memory is based off a stay at home mom perspective with two very little boys. The feelings of division rose to new heights I had not seen before through Trump’s first term, through Biden’s term in office up to present day and it was around 2020 when I started seeing a sharp rise of politics entering my office, from both sides of the isle. It wasn’t until 2024 when I started to see all professionalism lost in the private therapist run Facebook groups in Saint Louis.

Political Passion in the Profession

Full disclosure, I have friends that run the spectrum of political beliefs and I have heard complaints from all sides regarding therapists on the subject of biased political views. The scariest are people who have put their teens and preteens in therapy with a radically opinionated therapist that cause more harm than good. On one end of the spectrum you have therapists doing extreme reprogramming therapy for homosexuality and at the other therapists who are signing off on sex changes that aren’t qualified or well rounded enough to be doing so. As people are more emboldened, there is imbalance at every turn, not just on the subject of sexual identity. All in the name of doing what they FEEL is the right thing.

A Peek Into Therapist Facebook Groups

So you understand who I am, let’s start with my personal view of what a therapist should be: an expert in communication, professionalism and boundaries, someone who is paid too help another person find their own way in the context of their own life experience, someone who knows themself, their strengths and limitations and does not use their position of power to manipulate or coerce for their own satisfaction to justify their own world view. A therapist, in my mind should be about the most balanced and introspective person you can encounter.

Funny, as I’m writing this, none of our founding fathers of psychology portray this image at all. Piaget was a horrible scientist that used his own kids to formulate his theories and Freud was obsessed with s3x. I digress…

I can only speak to what I have seen in my area. I have compared, though, because I moved to Florida recently and the therapist community in South Florida seems to know how to keep it professional on and off Facebook.

Therapist Facebook groups are off the chain, as we said in the 90’s. Therapists are lamenting, ‘I just can’t go to work and support my clients. I am so upset about the election I can’t function’ I guess it is good they feel like they would spare their clients their condition. They are ousting and blacklisting each other publicly. God forbid you ask a question that may be triggering for anyone in these groups lest you be crucified, again, publicly. By the way, you never know what is a trigger. trying to communicate with these “professionals” is like being in a bad relationship. It has turned in to the Salem Witch Trials of sorts. There are a lot of opinions and a lot of entitlement. I have seen new professionals marketing themselves as experts in areas there is no way they could have expertise in given the amount of time they have been out of school. No one says or does a thing. Seems to be a bit of an epidemic in the St. Louis therapist community.

Needless to say, I have left the groups. Those of us who just want to go to work and help the community like we planned quietly stick to ourselves.

A Therapist’s Job

I have been a therapist for just over a decade now, wow. I am crazy so I decided to start training new therapists coming on to the scene. The political environment has made training new professionals in my industry risky because there are so many with extreme views, if you don’t agree or if you even simply try and do your job which is to train them, you might find yourself in a legal pickle.

Better believe my team has varying political views. Regardless, we all have the same job and that job is to teach you (the client) balance, consistency, and introspection. We are there to show you to yourself in a mirror so-to-speak. Our job is to teach you the basic component of what healthy and balanced looks like, how to communicate and negotiate effectively and keep yourself on track to reach your goals. Put another way, it is our job to help you boil an issue down to its most basic components and themes so it is manageable. Balance is key. To teach balance, you must yourself be balanced. It is an ongoing practice.

As of right now, there is a lot of the blind leading the blind.

Politics inevitably come up. In couples therapy, couples will fight over politics and I wonder outloud, “What is Elon Musk doing in your marriage? Why does he have so much power over a 20 year partnership and bond?” The reason I say things like this is because what you are bringing into therapy is NOT the actual problem anyway. The issue isn’t about Elon, Trump, Biden, Obama, or the dirty underwear on the floor. The context is just the scape goat. What the real issue is rooted in safety, trust, power, control, fear, etc. All the great modern therapists speak to this; Esther Perel, Gabor Mate, Jordan Peterson, John Gottman, etc.

The problem is not about the politics, it is deeper and it is not the therapists job to ever get sucked into the context of the presenting issue (politics or otherwise). If they do, they are compromised by bias and must recuse themself. This would require self awareness.

How to Pick a Professional

Interview them. See how they respond to you. If a therapist is a bit overly passionate about agreeing with you, that’s a big clue they are compromised. Remember, balance and boundaries are the mark of a healthy person. Remember, it can be frustrating when a therapist refuses to get into a passionate discussion on a topic. Also remember that is not their job and if that is what you are looking for, you need a friend, not a therapist.