Frontiers in Mental Health: All Articles, Issue 1

Table of Contents

1. Introduction | Andrew Hartz, Ph.D.

2. The Path Forward | Andrew Hartz, Ph.D.

3. Masculinity Crisis: Psychological Insights for Boys and Men | Yedidya Levy, Psy.D.

4. The Secular Bias in Psychotherapy | Nina Silander, Psy.D.

5. Revolution in Culture: The Psychological Effects of a Politicized Society | Carole Sherwood, DClinPsy

6. The New Activist Therapists | Val Thomas, DPsych

7. Distorted Data: Political Bias and Concerning Research Practices | Ben J. Lovett Ph.D.

8. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Trainings Likely Do More Harm Than Good | Andrew Hartz, Ph.D.

9. Antisemitism in 2025: Problems on Campus and the Mental Health Response | Neil J. Kressel, Ph.D. and Brandy Shufutinsky, Ed.D., LSW

10. Responding to Therapist Activism: New Strategies for Change | Val Thomas, DPsych

Introduction: The Vision for This Journal and the Future of Mental Health Care

By OTI Founder and President Andrew Hartz, Ph.D.

The launch of this journal marks a pivotal moment in the history of mental health care. Countless clinical issues have been neglected because of socio-political biases in the field. As a result, an untold number of patients have received inferior care or been alienated from the profession. This is now changing. As we start documenting overlooked issues, we hope to spark conversations that can address biases, develop new interventions, improve mental health care, and even tackle problems in the larger society. This project can open an exciting new chapter in the future of this profession.

Scope of the Problem

The scope of the problem is immense. Socio-political bias has led to dozens of overlooked clinical populations, likely comprising many millions of patients. These are people whose concerns are left out of most research, ignored in most training progress, and who often have nowhere to turn to find skilled therapists. The issues include:

• People who self-censor or are otherwise impacted by censorship culture

• Issues related to therapy with conservatives or others with heterodox viewpoints

• People impacted by growing antisemitism after the 10/7 war crimes

• People impacted by hateful or aggressive DEI trainings

• People impacted by DEI-based job discrimination

• Issues related to political conflict in couples, families, and institutions

• Issues related to religious patients

• Masculinity issues in dating, couples, families, and young men

• Anti-male biases and aggression

• Culturally-skilled therapy for gunowners

• Gay men and lesbians who feel alienated by aspects of LGBT culture

• People who experience anti-white aggression and bias

• People of color who disagree with dominant “anti-racist” narratives

• Heterodox views about transgender issues

This is just the start of a much longer list—a list that will certainly grow as our scholarship expands—and on each issue, we need case studies, theoretical papers, surveys, literature reviews, and treatment interventions. We need these from every theoretical orientation, from cognitive-behavioral approaches to psychodynamic and humanistic approaches, including dialectical behavior therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and family systems theory. There are questions for each clinical issue about what contributes to it socially and psychologically, how people experience it, how it impacts symptoms, how it manifests in therapy, how therapists could respond better, what interventions help, and how to address it at the institutional and cultural levels. In short, there are hundreds of articles and studies needed for each topic.

Given the sheer number of overlooked issues, we’re beyond the need for general articles about why therapists should try to avoid bias. Instead, this is the time for scholars to drill down into specific topics and offer insights about how to improve care. For example, we need articles like these: “Bias against men in couples therapy from a structural family systems approach,” “Interventions that secular therapists can use with religious patients,” and “Psychodynamic techniques for developing a strong therapeutic alliance with conservative patients.” Scholars need to dig into specific clinical issues and avoid rehashing generic, abstract, or intellectual concerns.

Structure and Style of This Journal

The goal of this journal is to start outlining issues and perspectives in mental health that are overlooked because of socio-political bias. Because these topics typically have minimal academic literature, the focus is on starting conversations rather than trying to provide definitive answers. To best accomplish this goal, we’ve tried to follow seven principles so that the articles can be most useful and constructive.

Exploratory

At this point in time, most articles are happening at step one of the research cycle, which includes observation, theory, and hypothesis generation. Only after this work is done can we conduct studies and develop an evidence base. This means that much of what’s presented is speculative. Articles draw on observation, the academic literature, and clinical inference, but the new hypotheses they propose will require further study. In no article does the Open Therapy Institute take an official position. All viewpoints are those of the author alone. This is necessary because there simply isn’t enough evidence to take official stances on every issue. All we can do is highlight overlooked perspectives in the hope of furthering dialogue.

Succinct

Because so many patients are poorly served, there’s an urgent need to start these conversations now. However, robust literature reviews and empirical studies would take years (and substantial funding) to complete. With this in mind, we wanted scholarly articles that have academic rigor but don’t require the work of a 20,000-word literature review or a years-long empirical study. As a result, these articles are very short for academic articles—typically just 1,000 words. They’re dense with insights and information in the hope that each article can lead to considerable formal research later.

Accessible

We wanted these articles to be accessible to an educated lay reader. We minimized jargon and avoided an overly academic style so they could be read by non-professionals. Most therapists prefer reading articles written in an accessible style, anyway. This can make articles more impactful and sometimes more conceptually clear, too.

Useful

We want insights that are actually helpful to people—not overly philosophical, ivory tower observations but practical, clinically useful insights. We hope that this can demonstrate how powerful concepts from mental health can be and how they can address myriad problems of our current moment. This is especially important for those readers who might be concerned about useless academic navel-gazing or convoluted academic speak, which we tried to avoid at all costs.

Engaging

Articles are better absorbed when they’re interesting and touch on issues that have emotional resonance and relevance to the current times, as opposed to tedious summaries.

Courageous

We also wanted to prioritize courageous authors. Topics like anti-white aggression are third rail topics in contemporary politics, but this really makes no sense. Everyone should be able to understand that racial aggression toward anyone is wrong. People who’ve experienced anti-white hate are a severely underserved population, but they deserve care. Countless important topics like this are ignored because we have social conventions that prohibit needed conversations. To address issues like these, we need candid discussions that are warm, direct, and not overly vague or defensive. It takes courage to do this, but it’s very much needed in our current era.

Positive and Constructive

At all times, we want to maintain a tone that is warm, therapeutic, patient-centered, empathic, and dialectical. When addressing potentially controversial issues, we want to avoid aggressive, inflammatory language, ad hominem attacks, and other counterproductive rhetoric. The focus of every essay is on improving care for people who are poorly served. Never is it about settling scores, attacking others, or besting supposed enemies.

This Issue

Hopefully, this first issue, co-edited by Dr. Andrew Hartz and Dr. Val Thomas, comes close to these lofty aspirations. In it, we hope to introduce the reader to problems related to social justice activism that threaten the field and to explore ways we can most effectively respond. We also want to highlight the wide range of issues that need addressing, from bias in contemporary research to cultural challenges related to politicized culture and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in particular. We also have articles on populations that are often poorly served, including men, religious patients, and people experiencing antisemitism. In future issues, we hope it will become even clearer how many issues need attention, but this is a start.

Applications

More than anything else, this journal is about planting seeds. Each article is a subfield that’s yet to be built. We hope each article leads to op-eds, training for therapists, public speaking, research proposals, books, clinical services, and resources for the public. It can help to foster a professional community of experts who can reform the field, even developing new programs, textbooks, and graduate course curricula.

We also hope that the template is copied by other fields. Every profession should have a publication highlighting issues and perspectives that are missing because of socio-political bias— from public health, business, and education to sociology, the arts, and the humanities. We hope, too, that the style, structure, and tone of the articles can be a model for talking about difficult subjects constructively.

In psychotherapy, the exploratory process usually generates unexpected insights. As people go into more depth, they often find unforeseen solutions, new ways of framing and responding to issues, and more information that helps them develop deeper understandings. The process itself can be healing. People become more comfortable speaking candidly about important topics, which helps them think more clearly and respond more effectively.

If mental health professionals apply this same process to contemporary issues that are impacting millions of people, it could be equally transformative—not just for mental health care but for the larger society. Here’s to beginning this work.

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The Path Forward

By OTI Founder and President Andrew Hartz, Ph.D.

The world is changing. Political issues that had been in the background are now a daily concern of countless people. Controversies about race, gender, faith, and politics dominate culture, education, and the workplace. They impact people’s relationships, families, careers, and inner life. They’re also impacting people’s mental health.

These cultural changes pose new challenges, but they also provide an opportunity. The mental health field can demonstrate how psychological wisdom can be utilized to help people navigate chaotic times. Tools from clinical psychology can help people understand each other, engage in mature dialogue, and avoid cycles of miscommunication and conflict. They could play a significant role in helping our society.

Unfortunately, the mental health professions have largely failed to rise to the occasion. Instead of helping people who are silenced, many therapists have embraced activism of the most strident kind. They frame complex issues in all-or-nothing terms, use viciously aggressive language (e.g., calling white people or men “toxic”), sabotage dialogue through censorship and blacklisting, and engage in countless other destructive behaviors.

And the activism in established mental health institutions isn’t coming equally from both sides—it’s coming almost entirely from the social justice left. This poses difficulties too. In particular, it makes it hard to address the problem without getting pulled into binary political conflicts. Amidst this tangle of challenges, many mental health professionals are looking for a path forward.

Responding to Bias

To address political bias, there seem to be two broad strategies. One approach is to “fight fire with fire.” Some people frustrated with bias use fiery rhetoric or take strident positions, and some even practice equally politicized approaches to treatment. While the frustration behind these views might be understandable, this strategy is unpersuasive to most. It focuses exclusively on countering perceived opponents, which can lead to stalemates where both sides have locked horns. It’s reactive, so it can’t move discourse beyond countering opponents. At its worst, it falls into many of the same traps as left-leaning activist approaches. And when brought into psychotherapy, it can lead to unethical and countertherapeutic treatments.

“[It’s] what the field isn’t doing because of bias: the research that’s not conducted, the trainings that aren’t offered, the clinical populations that are ignored.”

Another strategy is to argue against “ideology” in general and to avoid any appearance of partisanship. But this approach can have pitfalls too. First, activist leaders in mental health seem just as likely to attack this stance as “bigoted” and “political” as they do of people taking more overt political stances. Second, this approach can lead people to get mired in irresolvable philosophical debates about what is and isn’t “biased” or “ideological.” Third and most importantly, this approach can inhibit people from addressing the full extent of the shortcomings in the field. People with this view can sometimes be hamstrung by attempts to appear neutral, so they equivocate between both sides and ignore important problems because it might make the organization look partisan or ideological.

At the Open Therapy Institute, we’re trying to take a third approach: highlighting the issues and perspectives that are being left out of the field because of socio-political bias. We can focus on overlooked clinical populations, unexplored clinical issues, and perspectives that are often silenced in the field. It’s about finding the gaps in the literature and trying to fill those gaps.

We’re taking this approach for three main reasons:

• This work is a prerequisite for dialogue. Until we outline what’s not being said, we can’t start to talk about it. Every overlooked issue has to be discussed candidly and directly for the conversation to be able to start.

• This approach frames issues in a positive, constructive, and patient-centered way. Every therapist should want to improve care for patients who are overlooked and to have robust dialogue about important issues in the field.

• This framing also allows us to fully explore every overlooked issue without descending into binary clashes. We can simply focus on doing the work that needs to be done.

In short, our approach enables us to avoid the pitfalls of overly cautious neutrality and overly aggressive activism. It can help us talk about difficult subjects and address problems in a warm, evidence-based, constructive, and patient-centered way. Isn’t this the essence of what good therapists should do?

Overlooked Issues

There are two ways of looking at socio-political bias. One is to describe what the field is doing that’s biased. The other is to examine what the field isn’t doing because of bias.

Naturally, people concerned with bias usually start with examples of overtly politicized practices: therapists kicking patients out of therapy because of their views, refusing to treat patients with mainstream beliefs, clashing with patients because they deliberately insert political agendas into sessions, and so on. And to be clear, there are countless examples of these practices, from therapists forcing conversations about privilege into sessions to therapists trying to “queer” the therapeutic process.

But a much bigger problem is actually what the field isn’t doing because of socio-political bias: the research that’s not conducted, the trainings that aren’t offered, the clinical populations that are ignored and don’t have clear options for care. These overlooked patients include people who are attacked or “canceled” for their beliefs and people who are pushed to censor themselves. This problem also includes masculinity issues, faith-based issues, issues related to antisemitism, and people with a variety of conservative socio-political values.

There are likely many millions of people who are affected by these dynamics. In total, they’re probably the most poorly served clinical populations in the country. These are the “forgotten patients.” It might not be obvious at first, but ignoring these populations is the single most powerful form of bias in the mental health field.

Building Skill

Unfortunately, most therapists have a poor understanding of what clinical skill with these populations looks like. Many therapists wrongly assume that all they need to do is avoid overt attacks against their patients. If a therapist is “nice” to the patient about their views, they think they’re doing a perfect job. This belief itself shows how low the bar has sunk.

In reality, therapists must do much more than be superficially polite. To be effective, they often need to be active. If therapists are stoic and quiet, patients will likely assume that they hold the dominant social justice values in the field and will therefore be similarly judgmental and non-empathetic. To counter this, therapists may need to cue patients that they can be open about these experiences, so as to help them process and reflect on these experiences. They may need to model comfort and maturity in discussions about these topics. In some limited situations, therapist disclosure may be useful.

Therapists also need to have genuine understanding of, comfort with, and respect for the full range of socio-political values. Even more, they should try to know something about issues that impact millions of people. They need to be curious, engaged, empathic, and knowledgeable about these experiences, and they need to understand ways they can help. Of course, to truly do this, therapists need to be able to access scholarly articles on these topics, get training on them, and have other professional resources to help them develop these skills.

To conceptualize skills related to socio-political values, the following scale is helpful:

(0) Activist Therapists: These therapists reject patient-centered approaches to treatment and consciously and deliberately insert political ideologies into sessions (whether it’s race and gender or Palestinian activism and electoral politics), even when this leads to clashes with patients.

(1) Biased Therapists: These therapists don’t deliberately politicize sessions, but they have strong political views that can damage treatments. They may make assumptions about patients, conflict with patients around politics, and judge, avoid, proselytize, or apply misattuned approaches in ways large and small.

(2) Unskilled Therapists: These are therapists who strive to be patient-centered and who are able to set aside their personal views to connect to patients empathically. But they know little about many socio-political issues, and they often lack useful interventions. They don’t have the knowledge to provide more than open-mindedness, and they have important blindspots.

(3) Skilled Therapists: These are therapists who are knowledgeable about socio-politically diverse issues. They’re engaged, warm, and curious. They can actively help patients understand their experiences, and they have a strong understanding of how to effectively address these problems.

Clearly, bias doesn’t only refer to the therapists who score a 0 on this scale. Really, bias impacts nearly every therapist. Because the academic literature on socio-political issues is so limited, even the most well-read mental health professionals are missing knowledge about countless issues. Until this situation improves, few in the field will be truly skilled, and patients will bear the cost.

Socio-political Biases in Therapy

There are many pitfalls that can occur when therapists overemphasize socio-political biases. Therapists shouldn’t make social change a goal of treatment (something that’s clearly not achievable in the therapeutic context). At their worst, therapists can stereotype patients, lose their clinical curiosity, and frame patients’ concerns as unresolvable because they’re caused by “systemic” issues neither party has control over. And an overemphasis on the socio-political aspects can eat up time and energy in treatments that could be better spent on evidence-based treatments of systems. Clearly, an excessive or rigid focus on political issues has high costs in therapy.

At the same time, some people underestimate the extent to which socio-political forces can interact with mental health. Actually, in one form or another, all of the conflicts and dilemmas of the contemporary moment can appear in psychotherapy: race, gender, faith, family, and every other political issue. This makes psychotherapy an informative mirror of contemporary society: In it, we can see all of society’s problems and biases, as well as the openings where change is possible.

For example, the challenge of having stigmatized beliefs can involve self-censorship, isolation, and antagonism from teachers, bosses, and colleagues. This can impact people’s social life, romantic life, family life, and career. For many patients struggling with addiction, depression, anxiety, or another disorder, these socio-political factors are often front of mind, and they can be central to treatment.

This is all the more important because patients aren’t always eager to raise these concerns. A shocking number of patients who are wrestling with these issues assume they aren’t supposed to discuss faith or politics in therapy (though this seems more likely if they have views that are right of center). Other patients worry about their therapist finding out their beliefs, and so they actively conceal them. Some want to raise the issue but wait weeks or months before doing so because they think it could end the therapeutic relationship—a fear that isn’t entirely baseless. Others might want these services, but because they’re aware of the biases in the field, they avoid treatment altogether—often with lasting resentment and mistrust toward the field as a whole. Taken together, therapists’ biases and patients’ reticence can make many socio-political issues even more invisible to therapists, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t clinically important.

Conclusion

Each of these points complements the others. Addressing overlooked issues will help us more effectively overcome bias, help millions of people in need, radically improve the clinical skills of therapists, and confront the myriad social issues that are currently damaging mental health. This work is only beginning, and, with each new insight and each new topic, clinical practice improves, and more people are helped. There’s a lot of ground to cover. This journal is just the first step in a long journey.

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Masculinity Crisis: Psychological Insights for Boys and Men

By Yedidya Levy, Psy.D., OTI Faculty

Boys and men are struggling in the United States against a variety of different metrics. Below are a few recent findings highlighted by Richard Reeves.

• Women are 15 percentage points more likely than men to complete a bachelor’s degree.

• Men’s wages are lower today than they were in 1979.

• Nearly 25% of children grow up in a home without a father.

• Men account for almost three out of four “deaths of despair” (suicide or overdose).

These findings are widely agreed upon, but there’s significant debate regarding why and what to do about it.

Factors Impacting Men

Societal changes might be contributing to these poor outcomes among men in the United States. Below are several hypotheses requiring further development and research, as well as suggestions for psychotherapists.

Anti-Masculine Attitudes

Although it’s politically incorrect to assert, masculinity is, in part, biologically determined (Polderman et al., 2018). Personality traits closely associated with masculinity (including competitiveness, risk-taking, aggression, and protectiveness) have become anathema in certain prominent political circles. The “absence” of masculinity in the political conversation is symptomatic of a cultural devaluing of masculinity, which contributes to shame and inadequacy for men collectively (Reeves, 2022). This can even take the form of a kind of anti-male shaming, which can push men toward aggression, anxiety, depression, and cycles of internalized shame (DiMuccio & Knowles, 2023; Tangney & Dearing, 2003). A culture of anti-masculinity can also generate divisive and dangerous expressions of masculinity, further perpetuating anti-masculine attitudes (Maricourt & Burrel, 2022). The last decade’s sociocultural dialogue around the prominence of the “manosphere,” “red pill,” and “incel” communities highlights this paradigm.

Absent and Abusive Fathers

Nearly one in four children grow up without a father in their home (U.S. Census Bureau, 2023). Research has found that boys growing up without a father are at greater risk of a range of poor outcomes, including poverty, behavioral problems, infant mortality, incarceration, criminal conviction, abuse, addiction, obesity, and school dropout (Farrell & Gray, 2018). Without an adequately present father, boys are missing an essential model of healthy masculinity. Additionally, an absent or abusive father can contribute to intense feelings of rage. This rage is often internalized as depression, hopelessness, despair, and impulsivity; other times, it’s externalized. The individual psychological consequences and societal risks generated by conflicted father–son relationships are foundational to modern psychology, and their significance is reflected in foundational case studies dating back to Freud and the myths highlighted by Jung.

Absence of Initiation

Adolescence marks a biological and psychological change in human beings. For thousands of years, this change was welcomed through communal ritual. Initiations marked a child’s metamorphosis into adulthood (Eliade, 1958). Puberty rites and rituals of initiation were almost always gendered and offered the adolescent a sense of meaning and purpose related to their gender. Boys were initiated into roles that helped in the formation of personal identity and made meaning of their gender. These roles were often born out of necessity, communicating to the initiates that they had a part to play in the preservation of their community. Individualism, secularism, safetyism, and anti-masculinity all contribute to a culture in which communal ritual for boys is a rarity. Without initiation, moments of communal identity formation as it relates to gender are lacking.

What Therapists Can Do

What can psychotherapists do to raise awareness culturally and improve the psychotherapeutic treatment of men? A few possibilities appear below.

Generating Positive Models of Masculinity

Psychotherapists can play a crucial role in supporting healthy and prosocial expressions of masculinity. By inviting clients to explore their expressions of masculinity without judgment, clinicians can reduce shame and facilitate change in alignment with their clients’ values and predispositions. Male therapists can help men recognize and challenge harmful stereotypes and societal pressures that might be contributing to their presenting issues. When masculinity is explored without bias, male clients feel less threatened and will be more receptive to the development of key therapeutic factors such as relationality, empathy, emotional intelligence, and resilience.

Celebrating Fatherhood

Psychotherapists can play a pivotal role in supporting fathers and promoting their involvement in their children’s lives. Fathers have a unique role in the family, and they need to be valued and engaged in ways that feel authentic to who they are—not emasculated or fake versions of themselves. Clinicians can also help sons better understand and interact with their fathers. In therapy, sons and fathers can explore their fears, expectations, and societal pressures related to their roles, allowing them to develop a healthier self-concept and curiosity about the possibilities of a father–son relationship. Group therapy sessions can also create a supportive community for fathers to share experiences and learn from one another, reinforcing the importance of their presence and active participation in their children’s lives. Through these efforts, psychotherapists can facilitate a model of fatherhood that benefits both fathers and their families. Psychotherapists can also do more to communicate the beauty and importance of the father–son dyad in the current sociocultural moment.

Supporting Male-Only Spaces

Psychotherapists can support the existence of male-only spaces by recognizing and validating the unique needs and experiences of men inside and outside the psychotherapy context. By facilitating group sessions exclusively for men, therapists allow for an environment where men can discuss contentious or socially taboo issues related to their experience and expression of gender. These spaces allow men to explore their emotions, challenges, and personal growth in ways that are more difficult in mixed-gender settings. Ultimately, these spaces offer men an opportunity for introspection, solidarity, and personal development that can enhance their overall well-being and contribute positively to their male identity, as well as their roles in family and society.

Conclusion

Anti-masculine attitudes, the absence of fathers, and the loss of initiation each contribute to the struggle boys and men are having in forming healthy senses of male identity. These factors correlate with increased deaths of despair among men, lower rates of college education, and extreme expressions of masculinity (Reeves, 2022). Psychotherapists can make a difference by changing the sociocultural dialogue around masculinity and embracing aspects of masculinity in the context of psychotherapy. Fathers and fatherhood have both been long theorized to be vital contributors to male identity. Psychotherapists have a role to play in sessions and beyond regarding revitalizing the father–son dyad and educating people about its significance. Finally, male-only spaces, such as process groups, can offer men a source of support, validation, and shame reduction.

References

DiMuccio, S. H., & Knowles, E. D. (2023). Something to prove? Manhood threats increase political aggression among liberal men. Sex Roles, 88(5), 240–267. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-023-01349-x

Eliade, M. (1958). Rites and symbols of initiation: The mysteries of birth and rebirth (1st ed.). New York: Harper Torchbooks.

Farrell, W., & Gray, J. (2018). The boy crisis: Why our boys are struggling and what we can do about it. BenBella Books.

Hawley, J. (2023). Manhood: The masculine virtues America needs. Simon and Schuster.

Joyce, E., Pratt, D., & Lea, J. (2024). Men’s perspectives on the relationship between masculinities and suicidality: A thematic synthesis. Psychology of Men & Masculinities. 25(3), 221–239. https://doi.org/10.1037/men0000472

Maricourt, C. D., & Burrell, S. R. (2022). #MeToo or #MenToo? Expressions of backlash and masculinity politics in the #MeToo era. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 30(1), 49–69. https://doi.org/10.1177/10608265211035794

Polderman, T. J. C., Kreukels, B. P. C., Irwig, M. S., Beach, L., Chan, Y. M., Derks, E. M., Esteva, I., Ehrenfeld, J., Heijer, M. D., Posthuma, D., Raynor, L., Tishelman, A., Davis, L. K., & International Gender Diversity Genomics Consortium (2018).The biological contributions to gender identity and gender diversity: Bringing data to the table. Behavior Genetics, 48(2), 95–108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-018-9889-z

Reeves, R. V. (2022). Of boys and men: Why the modern male is struggling, why it matters, and what to do about it. Brookings Institution Press.

Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2003). Shame and guilt. Guilford Press.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2023). Families and living arrangements: 2023. U.S. Department of Commerce. https://www.census.gov/topics/families/families-and-living-arrangements.html

Watzlawik, M. (2009). When a man thinks he has female traits constructing femininity and masculinity: Methodological potentials and limitations. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 43, 126–137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-008-9085-4

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The Secular Bias in Psychotherapy

By Nina Silander, Psy.D., OTI Faculty

The United States is a religiously diverse nation. Yet, compared to the average American, mental health professionals are much less religious than most patients (Shafranske & Cummings, 2013). So unsurprisingly, many therapists are uneasy about discussing matters of faith in therapy, and often they’re ill-equipped to manage issues at the intersection of psychology and spirituality. Fortunately, some scholars have made valuable efforts to address these gaps (e.g., Cook, 2020; Vieten et al., 2013). What follows is a preliminary review of secular bias specifically in mental health professions, a discussion of how religion benefits well-being, and some suggested solutions.

Secular Bias

Historically, professional psychology has been antagonistic towards religion. This is in part due to secular, materialist roots of the field and its aspirations to be an exclusively scientific discipline. In the provision of clinical service, the field also shifted what was once the domain of the clergy—nurturing spiritual and interpersonal health—into a nonreligious context. Most famously, Freud viewed religion as an “infantile neurosis,” likened to wishful thinking and in need of a cure. The behaviorist, Skinner, meanwhile, rejected notions of the “soul” and religion as “pre-scientific.” Many therapists continue to regard religion as primitive and superstitious. And despite regarding religiosity as a facet of currently esteemed multiculturalism, religious practices and experiences are easily viewed as pathological.

Unfortunately, the antagonism towards religion means that psychology, like other domains of academia, often:

• treats all religions as if they’re the same;

• overlooks the extent to which many renowned scientists throughout history held deep religious convictions (e.g., Blaise Pascal, Isaac Newton, and John Dalton);

• negates the limits of science (i.e., is unable to make claims about morality and meaning); and

• leaves little room for the ways in which science and religion may actually complement one another.

These problems are subsequently compounded by the opposition in academia against Christianity in particular, on the basis that it is a white supremacist, patriarchal, and oppressive religion. Ironically, Christianity (and other Abrahamic religions) is not originally Western or Anglo, and Western Christians are dramatically outnumbered by Christians in other parts of the world. Nonetheless, this antagonism towards Christianity further limits any opportunity for discussion about religion’s centrality to the cultural identity of many therapy clients and its associated health benefits.

The Benefits of Faith

Intrapersonal Benefits

Religious and spiritual beliefs and practices typically provide a foundation for personal growth and development. An orientation towards transcendental ideals and divinely informed worldviews allows many to live beyond material preoccupations and hedonistic impulses. Themes related to self-sacrifice and perseverance promote resilience in the face of adversity, and the hope for eternal life can serve as a powerful bulwark against nihilism and its destructive logical consequences. Horatio Spafford, upon losing his four daughters during an ocean voyage in 1873, demonstrated this by authoring the profound hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul.”

Research confirms much of what we intuitively know about the individual-level effects of religion/spirituality. Religiously affiliated and practicing people experience lower rates of psychiatric illness, substance use, and chronic illness, as well as improved marital satisfaction and increased longevity (Chida et al., 2009; Ofstedal et al., 2019). Additionally, the more active one is within a religious community, the clearer these individual-level health benefits appear to be (Nicholson et al., 2010). The precise relationship between religiosity and these outcomes is complex, given interacting social, physiological, and psychological factors (Oman & Thoresen, 2002).

Interpersonal and Communal Benefits

Participation in a religious community offers the support of a social network (a “spiritual family”), often transcending immediate geographic communities and even having international reach (e.g., the Jewish diaspora). The religious community also strengthens the building blocks of society more broadly in supporting marriages and families by bolstering committed relationships. In turn, this fosters healthy homelives for children’s development and nurturing quality relationships, fortifying them against stressors that strain familial bonds (Dollahite & Thatcher, 2005).

Religion also offers communities social cohesion (i.e., shared values, aspirations, and lifestyles) and reciprocal investment. Religious communities have long provided support for the widowed, orphaned, financially destitute, and infirm, influencing the development of modern-day health and social services. The role of religion at the communal level can also promote a balanced civic-mindedness, in which overarching, transcendental ideals may limit the effects of chronic stress (Ford et al., 2023), as well as the susceptibility of democracy to become tyrannical.

Religion in Therapy

As with difficulties in navigating socio-political values in therapy, clients may also be reluctant to discuss religious beliefs, particularly when they perceive their therapists as having unsupportive beliefs or lacking cultural humility (Judd, 2019). Sadly, these concerns are often reasonable, as many therapists are uncomfortable discussing religion in therapy and may pathologize certain religious beliefs and practices (Vieten et al., 2013). This can unfortunately result in missed opportunities to truly understand a client, leverage protective factors for their well-being, and promote the development of meaningful and long-lasting relationships within a client’s community. Practically, it can undermine the therapeutic relationship and lead to the premature termination of treatment.

Aside from practicing with a religious framework, therapists may also feel very limited in terms of being able to address matters of morality, which are inextricably linked to psychological well-being and inherent features of religious belief and practice. Therapists are thus caught in the strictures of affirmation and unconditional positive regard and unable to address needs related to character and moral development. As a result, some therapists could risk superficializing therapy and perpetuate a loss of meaning and responsibility amongst clients (i.e., “Do whatever makes you happy.”). People typically benefit from prioritizing (long-term) purpose ahead of (short-term) gratification.

To remedy these concerns, Vieten et al. (2013) have developed pertinent clinical competency guidelines for spiritual/religious diversity. Attending to these, as well as models of cultural humility and learning religiously-based interventions, can promote therapists’ ability to effectively respond to and engage with clients’ religiosity. Some have advanced certain evidence-based therapy approaches effectively adapted for the religious/spiritual (e.g., Koenig et al., 2015), and therapeutic interventions have been developed specifically for faith-based individuals, such as the use of the “God image” in therapy (Olson et al., 2016). Ultimately, the recognition of religiosity/spirituality as a fundamental component of cultural competency can significantly improve the practice of psychotherapy.

Conclusion

While religious/spiritual topics clearly aren’t always present in professional psychotherapy, they’re more relevant than many therapists assume. With professional humility, intellectual curiosity, self-study, and consultation, therapists can explore ways of leveraging the advantages of religiosity to the benefit of their patients—in conjunction with other therapeutic interventions. This will be to the benefit of religious clients, increase trust in the profession, and improve therapeutic outcomes.

References

Chida, Y., Steptoe, A., & Powell, L. H. (2009). Religiosity/spirituality and mortality. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 78(2), 81–90. https://doi.org/10.1159/000190791

Cook, C. H. C. (2020). Spirituality, religion & mental health: Exploring the boundaries. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 23(5), 363–374. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2020.1774525

Dollahite, D. C., & Thatcher, J. L. (2005). How a family’s religious involvement benefits children and youth. Sutherland Journal of Law and Public Policy, 1–15. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/5375

Ford, B. Q., Feinberg, M., Lassetter, B., Thai, S., & Gatchpazian, A. (2023). The political is personal: The costs of daily politics. Journal of personality and social psychology, 125(1), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000335 (Retraction published J Pers Soc Psychol. 2023 Sep;125(3):547. doi: 10.1037/pspa0000349.)

Judd, K. (2019). Doctrinal dialogues: Factors influencing client willingness to discuss religious beliefs. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 22(7), 711–723. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2019.1639649

Koenig, H., G., Pearce, M., J., Nelson, B., Shaw, S. F., Robins, C. J., Daher, N. S., Cohen, H. J., Berk, L. S., Bellinger, D. L., Pargament, J. I., Rosmarin, D. H., Vasegh, S., Kristeller, J., Juthani, N., Nies, D., & King, M. B. (2015). Religious vs. conventional cognitive behavioral therapy for major depression in persons with chronic medical illness: A pilot randomized trial. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 203(4), 243–251. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/NMD.0000000000000273

Nicholson, A., Rose, R., & Bobak, M. (2010). Associations between different dimensions of religious involvement and self-rated health in diverse European populations. Health Psychology, 29(2), 227–235. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018036

Ofstedal, M. B., Chiu, C. T., Jagger, C., Saito, Y., & Zimmer, Z. (2019). Religion, life expectancy, and disability-free life expectancy among older women and men in the United States. Journal of Gerontology, 74(8), 107–118. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gby098

Olson, T., Tisdale, T. C., Davis, E. B., Park, E. A., Nam, J., Moriarty, G. L., Davis, D. E., Thomas, M. J., Cuthbert, A. D., & Hays, L. W. (2016). God image narrative therapy: A mixed-methods investigation of a controlled group-based spiritual intervention. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 3(2), 77–91. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/scp0000096

Oman, D., & Thoresen, C. E. (2002). ‘Does religion cause health?’: Differing interpretations and diverse meanings. J Health Psychol., 7(4), 365–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105302007004326

Shafranske, E. P., & Cummings, J. P. (2013). Religious and spiritual beliefs, affiliations, and practices of psychologists. In K. I. Pargament, A. Mahoney, & E. P. Shafranske (Eds.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (Vol. 2): An applied psychology of religion and spirituality (pp. 23–41). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/14046-001

Vieten, C., Scammell, S., Pilato, R., Ammondson, I., Pargament, K. I., & Lukoff, D. (2013). Spiritual and religious competencies for psychologists. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 5(3), 129–138. https://awspntest.apa.org/doi/10.1037

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Revolution in Culture: The Psychological Effects of a Politicized Society

By Carole Sherwood, DClinPsy, OTI Faculty

Over the past decade, advertising, the arts, movies, and other forms of popular culture have been increasingly shaped by contemporary “social justice” theories, such as those affiliated with “anti-racism.” These theories emphasize racial differences and prioritize specific narratives about how race operates. What effect do these narratives have on people’s mental health, and in what ways can therapists intervene when individuals have been negatively affected?

Background

Cultural “norms,” values, customs, and beliefs are socially transmitted to individuals through a variety of means, including family, education, media, and the arts (Kashima et al., 2019). In these ways, a “shared reality” is created that is socially adaptive and maintains social cohesion. However, problems arise when the information transmitted is not universally accepted and, instead, evokes cognitive dissonance and negative emotional responses (Conway et al., 2021). For example, while “anti-racist” narratives are designed to encourage greater inclusion, they may inadvertently lead to exclusion and division and so meet some resistance. The discussion that follows considers this in the context of advertising, art and popular culture.

How “Anti-Racism” Narratives are Socially Transmitted

Since Edward Bernays demonstrated ways of shaping public opinion, the art of persuasion has proved an effective tool for promoting a product or brand. Yet, in recent times, advertisers seem increasingly concerned with promoting a particular view of how the world “should” be in terms of demographic composition. While some have noted an increase in the representation of black people and interracial couples in adverts, others have commented on an apparent decrease in representations of white people.

A similar trend can be found in movies, theatres and other forms of popular culture. In a drive to be more inclusive and diverse, the arts industry seems anxious to exclude white people—particularly white males. Art galleries have been swift to remove previously treasured artworks by “dead white males” or to highlight their links to colonialism or slavery.

Unintended Consequences of “Anti-Racism” Narratives

Exclusion and Division

The move to exclude white people from the arts, combined with the message that all white people are inherently racist and “bad,” can have real-life consequences for white artists and actors who find themselves unemployed and unemployable. As FAIR in the Arts points out, such artists “feel alienated by intolerance, groupthink, and lack the freedom and support to produce work that is inspired and unfiltered.” Loss of livelihood and reputation may lead to economic hardship, isolation, loss of self-worth, depression, anger and resentment. People of color may also experience frustration at being cast in limited roles that are defined by social justice theories about race, finding these disempowering and patronizing.

There are also consequences for consumers of the arts. In the theatre, “Blackout” nights invite people of color to gather for performances “free from the white gaze.” This not only sustains the “othering” of people of color but also suggests that white people possess the power to limit their enjoyment.

Dividing the world into “good” and “evil” groups encourages tribalism (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2019). Demonizing white people normalizes expressions of anger and aggression towards them. As a result, hostile comments and anti-white aggression may be tolerated or viewed as acceptable. These messages can have negative effects on mental health, ranging from moderate negative effects to disorders like depression, anxiety, and more severe disorders.

Moralizing

The imposition and moralizing tone of “anti-racist” and other progressive narratives may also be met with resistance. In the video gaming industry, Musa Al-Gharbi reports that while gamers are predominantly white, male and conservative, those working in the video games industry are “overwhelmingly” left-leaning and have a politicized “social justice” agenda. Tensions within the industry culminated in #Gamergate, with gamers objecting to a “moralizing campaign” being imposed on them. Al-Gharbi reports that despite these objections, gamers seem to have lost the argument “unequivocally,” although tensions persist.

Loss of Enjoyment

While individuals are under pressure to conform to “anti-racist” narratives, frequent intrusive reminders of racial differences and identity politics also reduce the enjoyment of activities pursued for recreation and relaxation. As movie critic Kyle Smith notes: “Viewers don’t like being told to eat their spinach when they’re reaching for their popcorn.”

Elon Musk complains about the way DEI intrudes on his enjoyment of video games. He asks, “Can you just leave the video games alone? You don’t want to do things that damage art. It breaks you out of the story.” As human beings, we flourish when we can “escape” into imaginary worlds, appreciate the beauty of artworks, or immerse ourselves in great literature. It brings meaning to our lives. Sharing these meaningful activities with friends can also bring pleasure and an emotional connection.

How Ideological Bias in Mental Health Education Exacerbates the Problem

Those affected by the “anti-racist” narratives that are currently widespread in Western culture may experience problems when seeking psychological help. Mental health education is increasingly ideologically biased (Redding, 2023), with multicultural competence modules encouraging “anti-racist” narratives (Frisby, 2023). For example, Wing Sue and Sue’s 2008 book Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice—a seminal text widely used to train psychologists and counselors—contains the objective: “Learn what White helping professionals need to do in order to prevent their Whiteness from negatively impacting clients of color” (p. 255). Clients, therefore, face the prospect of receiving a moral lecture from a psychologist who may exacerbate their distress rather than alleviate it.

Potential Solutions

How Therapists Can Help

Those affected negatively by the politicization of art and popular culture should receive help from mental health professionals who are knowledgeable and attuned to these concerns. Potential clients may include artists and those working in the creative industries who dissent from politicized narratives or find themselves unemployable. Others who enjoy and find meaning in the arts (or even casual gamers and viewers) may experience anger, alienation, or general social pessimism. Psychologists and psychotherapists have the knowledge and skills to help counteract the detrimental effects of political messaging. Well-established therapeutic approaches that could be used include the following:

• exploration of socio-cultural values (Redding & Cobb, 2023);

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to re-establish meaningful values;

• existential approaches exploring the importance of meaning in life;

• compassion-focused therapy to restore self-worth;

• group work with individuals exposed to “anti-racist” narratives, normalizing responses, providing mutual support; and

• support in identifying/establishing alternative social/online networks.

Areas for Research

Applied psychology would benefit from investigating the following:

• experiences of those working in creative industries who hold dissenting views;

• psychological effects on creatives of being excluded from their profession based on demographic characteristics; and

• effects of political narratives on the enjoyment of the arts and popular culture.

Conclusion

“Anti-racist” narratives and moral messaging in the arts and popular culture are designed to encourage greater inclusivity, diversity and tolerance. However, these narratives can lead to division, exclusion, entrenchment of unhelpful racial identifications and normalization of racial aggression. Previously shared activities that brought meaning and pleasure to people’s lives are also increasingly viewed through a narrow, racialized and binary lens. The resulting sense of loss, impoverishment of cultural pursuits and threat to social bonds pose a serious risk to mental health and psychological well-being.

References

Conway, L.G., Houck, S.C., Linus, C., Repke, M.A. & McFarland, J.D. (2021). The agreement paradox. How pressures to agree with others ultimately cause more societal division. In J-W van Prooijen (Ed.), The psychology of political polarization (1st ed., pp. 112–134). Routledge.

Frisby, C. L. (2023). Multiculturalism in contemporary American psychology (part 2). In C. L. Frisby, R. E. Redding, W. T. O’Donohue, & S. O. Lilienfeld (Eds.), Ideological and political bias in psychology: Nature, scope, and solutions (pp. 241–285). Springer.

Kashima, Y., Bain, P.G., & Perfors, A. (2019). The psychology of cultural dynamics: What is it, what do we know, and what is yet to be known? Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 499–529. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-103112

Lukianoff, G., & Haidt, J. (2018). The coddling of the American mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure. Penguin Books.

Redding, R.E., (2023). Debiasing psychology: What is to be done? In C. L. Frisby, R. E. Redding, W. T. O’Donohue, & S. O. Lilienfeld (Eds.), Ideological and political bias in psychology: Nature, scope, and solutions (pp. 241–285). Springer.

Redding, R. E., & Cobb, C. (2023). Sociopolitical values as the deep culture in culturally-competent psychotherapy. Clinical Psychological Science, 11(4), 666–682. https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026221126688

Wing Sue, D., & Sue, D. (2008). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice (5th ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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The New Activist Therapists

By Val Thomas, DPsych

During the last few years, a radical shift has been taking place in the therapy field in North America and the rest of the Anglophone world: Professional therapy institutions and mental health practitioners are adopting a politicized approach to therapy. Why does this matter? Because this activist therapy does not have a traditional patient-centered ethos, which foregrounds the individual’s unique experience, needs, and goals. Instead, activist therapists have a political agenda for societal change, which is then imposed on clients.

Despite its increasing dominance, there is hardly any empirical evidence supporting this politicized approach; on the contrary, there are many anecdotal reports of its detrimental impact on client welfare. This essay explains what activist therapy is, how it came to capture the field, and the implications for mental health.

What Is Activist Therapy?

For readers who have not been following the politicized path of therapy, here are some examples of current activism:

• Practitioners who believe it is acceptable to attack therapists with different political views—see a recent attempt to blacklist “Zionist” therapists.

• Reputable academic therapy journals that publish peer-reviewed papers advocating for highly dubious racialized concepts such as “Parasitic Whiteness” (capitalization in the original paper) (Moss, 2021).

• Trans-activists’ influence on therapeutic services for vulnerable clients. For example, the recent scandal in the Scottish Rape Crisis services where traumatized women have faced charges of bigotry for wanting to know the biological sex of their counselor.

• Mental health professionals who actively encourage polarization and division. See the Yale psychiatrist who urges people to shun Trump-supporting relatives.

What Are the Main Differences Between Activist Therapy and Traditional/Classical Therapy?

The issue here is not about the therapist having particular political views—this is inevitable—but that with regard to the client, as the American Counseling Association states explicitly, “Counselors are aware of—and avoid imposing—their own values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors” (ACA, 2014, Section A.4.b). And this is the key difference between therapy as generally practiced until recently and the new politicized approaches: Activist practitioners deliberately impose their own political beliefs onto their clients.

The worldview of traditional/classical therapy is informed to a greater or lesser degree by the modern Western Enlightenment philosophic tradition. Consequently, traditional/classical therapists, no matter what approach they espouse, share a commitment to the uniqueness of the individual and the healing ethos of therapy; broadly speaking, their practices are designed to increase the client’s insight, agency, and grasp on reality.

This new politicized approach to therapeutic practice is informed by critical social justice (CSJ)—a term coined by Sensoy and DiAngelo (2017)—which is a worldview that blends postmodern ideas with elements of Critical Theory (Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020). This ideology has a revolutionary political agenda and deploys an identitarian lens. Consequently, the client is viewed merely as an avatar of a particular group (or combination of groups), which is deemed either the oppressor or in an oppressed position within the wider societal matrix of power.

This worldview turns the therapeutic enterprise on its head. The activist therapist believes the client’s difficulties are caused by the wider unjust societal context; the only treatment offered is a form of moral reeducation that urges engagement in political action.

How Has Activist Therapy Captured the Professional Field?

How could a politicized approach to therapy—an approach that is being labeled by some as inherently antitherapeutic (Thomas, 2023) and explicitly antiscientific and antimeritocratic—get such a purchase on the mental health field? Broadly speaking, we can identify four groups that are driving this movement:

Activist Scholars

Hostile to Western European thought, which is deemed to be an expression of white supremacy, these scholars seek to dismantle and disrupt traditional schools of thought. They operate as gatekeepers in academic psychology, shutting down any critical debate and accusing critics of being reactionary—which has contributed to widespread self-censorship among academics (Corey et al., 2024).

Activist Clinicians

Influential clinician theorists such as Derald Wing Su (an early promoter of the contested notion of micro-aggressions) developed the theory and skills of multicultural competence. Their work established the ground for centering identity issues in clinical practice. Other theorists have built on this work, insisting on the salience of race in all clinical encounters, even if both practitioner and client are white (Dustrupp, 2021).

Activist Bureaucrats

Many professional organizations have been captured by activists deploying bureaucratic means such as: committing organizations to dismantling “systemic racism,” embedding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies at every level, and reengineering professional practitioner criteria along CSJ lines.

Activist Educators

Most therapists are trained within higher education institutions, which are monitored by DEI committees. Many psychology faculties have committed themselves to “decolonization of the curricula” (Phiri et al., 2023). This DEI bureaucracy, combined with an influx of educators wedded to a politicized education approach known as Critical Pedagogy (Gottesman, 2016), is instilling these practices in the next generation of practitioners.

What Do We Know About the Effectiveness of Activist Therapy?

The evidence that these practices improve outcomes is shockingly weak. This research typically relies on studies into clinical effects of training therapists in multicultural competence. A review of research studies (Benuto et al., 2016) suggests that, rather unsurprisingly, clients rate their therapists more highly if they have undergone multicultural training programs.

The lack of evidence can be explained by two factors. First, there is no general agreement on what constitutes the principles and methods of activist practice. If something isn’t operationalized, then it is very difficult to investigate. And second, activist scholars are generally averse to empirical evidence: Their interest is in changing cultural narratives (Pluckrose and Lindsay, 2020).

In contrast to activist claims, there are plenty of anecdotal reports published on Substacks, on social media, and in blogs about the harms of these approaches—see, for example, Critical Therapy Antidote’s collection of insider accounts of damaging therapy experiences. These writings, combined with podcast interviews of disillusioned therapy trainees, and the increasing volume of requests for “non-woke therapists” received at organizations such as the Open Therapy Institute point to significant disquiet.

Implications of Activist Therapy Practice for Culture and Mental Health Treatment

Potential negative impacts on the client include:

• weakening self-efficacy and agency. Activist therapy can foster victimhood, a sense of powerlessness, and/or entitlement;

• worsening interpersonal relationships. Activist therapy promotes polarization, fosters family divisions, and guides people to view all relationships through the lens of power;

• promoting simplistic reductive thinking such as either/or thinking (e.g., good/bad, right/wrong, and victim/oppressor); and

• encouraging lack of realism and delusions by rejecting ideas such as empiricism and biological sex.

Given the potential individual-level effects, it’s not a big leap to argue that the cumulative effects would help to weaken and destabilize society and culture over the long term.

Conclusion

Activist therapists are entrenched now in mental health treatment services, private practice, education counseling services, etc. This politicized approach to therapy is driven by academics, the therapy bureaucracies, and training institutions. The problem is growing. In response, we need to develop strategies to help mitigate the harmful effects of these practices on the individuals who seek out therapy.

References

American Counseling Association. (2014). Code of Ethics. https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/ethics/2014-aca-code-of-ethics.pdf

Benuto, L. T., Casas, J., & O’Donohue, W. T. (2018). Training culturally competent psychologists: A systematic review of the training outcome literature. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 12(3), 125–134. https://doi.org/10.1037/tep0000190

Clark, C.J., Fjeldmark, M., Lu. L., Baumeister, R.F., Ceci, S., Frey, K., Miller, G., Reilly, W., Tice, D., von Hippel, W., Williams, W.M., Winegard, B. M., & Tetlock, P.E. (2024). Taboos and self-censorship among U.S. psychology professors. Perspect Psychol Sci, May 16:17456916241252085. Advance online publication, https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916241252085

Drustrup, D. (2021). Talking with white clients about race. J Health Serv Psychol, 47, 63–72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42843-021-00037-2

Gottesman, I. (2016). The critical turn in education: From Marxist critique to poststructuralist feminism to critical theories of race. Routledge

Moss, D. (2021). On having whiteness. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69(2), 355–371, https://doi.org/10.1177/00030651211008507

Phiri, P., Sajid, S., & Delanerolle, G. (2023). Decolonising the psychology curriculum: A perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1193241. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1193241

Pluckrose, H., & Lindsay, J. (2020). Cynical theories: How activist scholarship made everything about race, gender, and identity—and why this harms everybody. Pitchstone

Sensoy, O., & DiAngelo, R. (2017). Is everyone really equal? (2nd ed.). Teachers’ College Press.

Thomas, V. (Ed.). (2023). Cynical therapies: Perspectives on the anti-therapeutic nature of critical social justice. Ocean Reeve.

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Distorted Data: Political Bias and Concerning Research Practices

By Ben J. Lovett, Ph.D.

Mental health professionals—particularly psychologists—pride themselves on using evidence-based practices. Psychologists take courses in research methods and statistics, and as practitioners, they are expected to keep up with relevant scientific journals and learn about new developments in their field. But evidence-based practices are only worth pursuing if the research evidence base is trustworthy. Is that generally the case?

About 15 years ago, psychology experienced a “replication crisis.” Researchers were unable to replicate many classic findings in psychology, and the field became much more aware of biases that affect how studies are designed, how data are analyzed, and how findings are published (Spellman, 2015). Since then, some steps have been taken to increase the field’s credibility, but concerns remain.

In a 2012 study (John et al., 2012), a high proportion of psychology researchers admitted to using questionable research practices, such as only reporting data for some of the outcome measures in a study or claiming that an unexpected finding had actually been predicted by the researchers from the start. As concerning as this may be, questionable research practices are even more troubling when they interact with another problem: political bias. It’s possible that the two problems could compound each other, as questionable practices are used in the service of shared political attitudes.

Political Bias

The vast majority of psychologists hold progressive political views (Redding, 2023), and so to the degree that those views influence the way that psychologists conduct and evaluate research, the published results will tend to be skewed in a progressive direction. Moreover, in recent years, a variety of initiatives have actually asked psychologists to include political considerations in the research publication process. As a result, the research literature on politicized topics is unlikely to represent true facts about human behavior and experience in an unbiased way.

Consider a politically sensitive (albeit nonclinical) topic in psychology: gender differences in math performance. An early study suggested that when students are made aware of a negative stereotype that women have low math ability, this may actually cause women to score worse on a math test (a “stereotype threat” effect; Spencer et al., 1999). This led to claims that even young girls are harmed by such stereotypes. But a state-of-the-art quantitative literature review (a meta-analysis by Flore & Wicherts, 2015) found that studies reporting a stereotype threat effect were more likely to get published; it seems that when researchers failed to find an effect, they either declined to share their results or else journals refused to publish them. Moreover, when this publication bias was accounted for, there was no significant stereotype threat effect in girls. Even so, the original 1999 study is still cited far more often than the more up-to-date literature review.

Of course, no research study is perfect, and all studies have limitations. But political bias leads researchers to hold studies to different standards, depending on the perceived political conclusions. At times, this bias even manifests as open political pressure on authors and journals. In 2018, the journal Nature Communications published a study finding that greater ethnic diversity in researcher teams was associated with scientific papers that had more impact on their fields (AlShebli et al., 2018). The study did not raise concerns and remains well-cited. In 2020, the same journal published a second paper by two of the same authors using similar methods but finding that research teams containing female mentors led to fewer benefits for female mentees (AlShebli et al., 2020). This time, the methodology was harshly criticized on social media, the authors were accused of sexism (although the lead author for both papers is a woman), and under severe pressure, the paper was eventually retracted from the journal. No doubt other researchers and journal editors were paying attention to this incident, and it would be understandable if they became more hesitant to publish any data that could lead to politically undesirable conclusions.

Political bias is particularly powerful at the stage of data interpretation. For instance, many proponents of cultural competence in psychotherapy claim that culturally tailored psychotherapy is superior to other evidence-based psychotherapy strategies. But often, the studies that support this conclusion never make a direct comparison. Instead, culturally tailored psychotherapy is compared to a control condition such as being on a waitlist for psychotherapy or being provided supportive counseling (Anik et al., 2021). Unsurprisingly, culturally tailored therapy is found to lead to more improvement than these poor substitutes. The researchers then celebrate the effects of culturally tailored psychotherapy and demand that psychologists be trained in it, without ever demonstrating that other evidence-based approaches are inferior. Cultural tailoring may be beneficial, but given the importance of the topic, it is inexcusable to draw inferences without adequate data.

Implications for Evidence-Based Practice

How should these problems affect psychologists’ understanding of evidence-based practice? Unfortunately, on politicized topics, where there is a strong political reason to want to find certain results, practitioners must be far more careful about accepting researchers’ pronouncements about what the evidence shows. This caution is most needed on politicized topics, but recent publication initiatives have encouraged journals to tie political considerations to all research. For instance, a group of scholars that includes the American Psychological Association’s Chief Science Officer has put forth a Diversity Accountability Index that rates journals on criteria including whether the journal invites critical commentaries on any articles that have even “the potential to reinforce white supremacy” (Buchanan et al., 2021).

Diversity-related criteria for publishing research articles would obviously have effects on potential authors as well as editors, and if a journal adheres to these criteria, readers must interpret the resulting journal articles with that in mind. More generally, the political bias in psychology research means that practitioners should be especially wary of brief summaries of studies that do not mention the details of the research methods and statistical results. Such summaries are common in practice guidelines and are particularly vulnerable to bias. Instead of blind trust, psychologists may need to use their training to locate and read the actual research studies and determine what conclusions are warranted.

Conclusion

The combination of political bias and questionable research practices is particularly dangerous. Misleading or inaccurate findings can get produced, then amplified, and even reach an apparent consensus. This poses a threat to the reputation of academic research as a whole, not just psychology.

However, the scientific method remains a powerful method for discovering truth, and used well, it reduces the biases that the human mind is prone to. Science can push back against our beliefs with clear evidence and persuade us to change our minds. It can discover which clinical practices are most effective, and it can even be used to identify effective ways of addressing concerns related to diversity and social justice. But the scientific process is not itself immune from bias, as the replication crisis showed, and political bias may be an especially insidious type. Therefore, psychologists who wish to base their clinical practice on research evidence, as they should, must be especially attentive to political bias when reviewing that evidence.

References

AlShebli, B. K., Makovi, K., & Rahwan, T. (2020). RETRACTED ARTICLE: The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications, 11(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20617-y

AlShebli, B. K., Rahwan, T., & Woon, W. L. (2018). The preeminence of ethnic diversity in scientific collaboration. Nature Communications, 9(1), 5163. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07634-8

Anik, E., West, R. M., Cardno, A. G., & Mir, G. (2021). Culturally adapted psychotherapies for depressed adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 278, 296–310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.09.051

Buchanan, N. T., Perez, M., Prinstein, M. J., & Thurston, I. B. (2021). Upending racism in psychological science: Strategies to change how science is conducted, reported, reviewed, and disseminated. American Psychologist, 76(7), 1097–1112. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000905

Flore, P. C., & Wicherts, J. M. (2015). Does stereotype threat influence performance of girls in stereotyped domains? A meta-analysis. Journal of School Psychology, 53(1), 25-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2014.10.002

John, L. K., Loewenstein, G., & Prelec, D. (2012). Measuring the prevalence of questionable research practices with incentives for truth telling. Psychological Science, 23(5), 524–532. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611430953

Redding, R. E. (2023). Psychologists’ politics. In C. L. Frisby, et al. (Eds.), Ideological and political bias in psychology (pp. 79–95). Springer.

Spellman, B. A. (2015). A short (personal) future history of revolution 2.0. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(6), 886–899. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691615609918

Spencer, S. J., Steele, C. M., & Quinn, D. M. (1999). Stereotype threat and women's math performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(1), 4–28. https://doi.org/10.1006/jesp.1998.1373

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DEI Trainings Likely Do More Harm Than Good

By OTI Founder and President Andrew Hartz, Ph.D.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are finally receiving academic scrutiny. For the past decade, criticism of DEI programs in academia has been muted, presumably because scholars fear vicious repercussions for disagreeing. But now, a recent study has demonstrated that these programs contribute to “hostile attribution bias,” where members of “privileged” demographic groups are depicted in ways that make others see them as aggressive when they aren’t. This is a great first step toward exposing the harms of DEI trainings, but there’s more work to be done. There’s reason to believe that these programs produce numerous other psychological and social problems (Divine & Ash, 2022). Below are six other commonly reported problems in DEI programs which need further research.

DEI Trainings and Negative Outcomes

Unsurprisingly, academia has conducted little research into the problems emerging in DEI trainings, but there are at least six dysfunctional processes that are commonly described.

All-or-Nothing Thinking

DEI trainings often frame entire demographic groups in all-or-nothing terms. For example, one demographic category might be described as “having power” and the others as “not having power.” This implies that power is either 100% or 0% across all situations and people. This all-or-nothing framing is different from arguments that individuals have relatively more or less power based on numerous variables that change depending on the context.

Similarly, DEI trainings tend to say only positive things about some demographic categories and only negative things about others. Some groups are supported, highlighted, praised, and celebrated, while other groups are never celebrated and often attacked as racist, fragile, ignorant, narcissistic (Miller & Josephs, 2009), toxic, etc. Trainings might suggest that only some groups are racial victims, while other groups are only racial victimizers.

This all-or-nothing framework is obviously distorted, but framing demographic groups in all-or-nothing terms can cause other problems, such as interpersonal conflict. All-or-nothing thinking is thought to contribute to numerous forms of mental illness, most notably borderline personality disorder, but it also plays a role in many other disorders.

Aggression

Some DEI training leaders make derogatory statements about “white tears” (Liebow & Glazer, 2019) or frame all white people as inherently racist or immoral in contrast to other groups. Some trainings even teach that anger is good because it motivates activism, and this anger is usually focused on white people and men. Additionally, many workplace cultures systematically exclude certain demographic categories from support, praise, or resources, which can indirectly communicate aggression. In other words, aggression can be pervasive, even though it’s often coated in a kind of professionalism.

Obviously, this kind of systemic race- or gender-based aggression could take a toll on many people’s mental health. As one example, a few years ago, a school principal committed suicide after being attacked in a DEI-style training.

Suppression of Dialogue

Because “racism” and “sexism” are ambiguous and contested terms, forbidding comments that are “racist” or “sexist” chills speech. This is especially true when these terms aren’t defined, when their consequences are severe, and when they’re enforced unevenly. In these fairly common situations, no one knows what’s acceptable, so they tend to defer to authority. This makes candid dialogue extremely difficult.

Typically, DEI trainings make no effort to foster dialogue with opposing viewpoints, which is noteworthy because dialogue can be challenging even when people make sincere attempts. Often, no one discusses any pros or cons of the ideas presented in these trainings, which is odd because nearly all ideas have pros and cons—especially the kinds of contentious claims DEI officers make. Taken together, this fosters a censorship culture that leads to the kinds of problems that emerge when people can’t talk: groupthink, anxiety, depression, etc.

Stereotyping

DEI trainings often make sweeping generalizations about group experiences. For example, many assume that all black people experience racism and no white people do. They might assume that all black people are liberal and support DEI initiatives, and they tend to equate culture with race, even though they aren’t synonymous.

Additionally, DEI policies can push people to see the world through a racial/gender schema, in which these features are noticed first and emphasized constantly, crowding out other valuable information (aesthetics, insight, efficiency, etc.). A pervasive focus on racial stereotypes is another psychosocial stressor that could contribute to mental illness.

External Locus of Control

Considerable research in psychology has focused on a concept called “external locus of control” (Galvin et al., 2018). This research typically shows that when people see their lives as determined by external factors (an external locus of control) as opposed to personal agency (an internal locus of control), they have numerous bad outcomes. People with an external locus of control can lose a sense of responsibility for their actions, and they can end up feeling powerless and depressed (Twenge et al., 2004), angry (Deming & Lochman, 2008), or anxious. An external locus of control can also undermine effort, responsibility, and other traits that are central to psychological maturity (Kesavayuth et al., 2022).

Yet most DEI trainings argue the opposite. DEI thought tends to be rooted in the Marxist view that society is like a big machine that produces social outputs. Criminal behavior, poor work ethic, and poor school performance are all seen as a result of this larger social machinery. These ideologies assume that if the social machinery were functioning correctly, every group would have the same outcomes. Therefore, every failure to achieve equity is a fault of “the system.” But by fostering an external locus of control, they’re likely contributing to countless bad outcomes.

“Safetyism”

The use of trigger warnings (Gainsburg & Earl, 2018) and the overemphasis of concepts such as trauma can inculcate people with a sense of fragility. Small, unintentional slights (i.e., microaggressions [Lilienfeld, 2017]) are seen as causing incurable traumas and immense suffering. This can make people more paranoid, anxious, hopeless, and more likely to feel harmed by innocuous material.

Sometimes there are even overt attempts to cultivate hypervigilance in participants about their own unconscious. They might be encouraged to worry constantly about their thoughts having unconscious racist or sexist motives. Attempts to use shame or aggression to force people to purify their unconscious of bias may be particularly harmful.

Conclusion

Despite the claims of DEI proponents, these programs seem to have huge problems that adversely impact people of every race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. These negative experiences are rarely discussed in academia, but they’re often described anecdotally. For all these reasons, plus the fact that currently more than half of midsize and large U.S. companies offer some form of DEI training (Dobbin & Kalev, 2018), it makes sense to pause these trainings until their effects are better understood.

References

Deming, A. M., & Lochman, J. E. (2008). The relation of locus of control, anger, and impulsivity to boys’ aggressive behavior. Behavioral Disorders, 33(2), 108–119. https://doi.org/10.1177/019874290803300205

Devine, P. G., & Ash, T. L. (2022). Diversity training goals, limitations, and promise: A review of the multidisciplinary literature. Annual Review of Psychology, 73, 403–429. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-060221-122215

Dobbin, F., & Kalev, A. (2018). Why doesn’t diversity training work? The challenge for industry and academia. Anthropology Now, 10(2), 48–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/19428200.2018.1493182

Gainsburg, I., & Earl, A. (2018). Trigger warnings as an interpersonal emotion-regulation tool: Avoidance, attention, and affect depend on beliefs. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 79, 252–263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2018.08.006

Galvin, B. M., Randel, A. E., Collins, B. J., & Johnson, R. E. (2018). Changing the focus of locus (of control): A targeted review of the locus of control literature and agenda for future research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(7), 820–833. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26610762

Kesavayuth, D., Binh Tran, D., & Zikos, V. (2022) Locus of control and subjective well-being: Panel evidence from Australia. PLOS ONE, 17(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272714

Liebow, N., & Glazer, T. (2019). White tears: Emotion regulation and white fragility. Inquiry, 66(1), 122–142. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2019.1610048

Lilienfeld, S. O. (2017). Microaggressions: Strong claims, inadequate evidence. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(1), 138–169. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616659391

Miller, A. E., & Josephs, L. (2009). Whiteness as pathological narcissism. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 45(1), 93–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.2009.10745989

Twenge, J. M., Zhang, L., & Im, C. (2004). It’s beyond my control: A cross-temporal meta-analysis of increasing externality in locus of control, 1960–2002. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(3), 308–319. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0803_5

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Antisemitism in 2025: Problems on Campus and the Mental Health Response

Part 1: By Neil J. Kressel, Ph.D.

Antisemitism is immensely complicated. As journalist Bari Weiss has noted, it is “ a shape-shifting worldview that slithers away just as you think you have pinned it down.” The Jew hater on the right or the left may attack an individual, a people, a culture, or a state. Sometimes the Jews are denounced as capitalists; on other occasions, they are seen as communists. They may be perceived as race contaminators or as the last remnant of an evil and racist colonialism. Theorists have seen the roots of antisemitism in religion, economics, politics, ideology, sociology, and psychology, and—no doubt—all of these forces have been important in various contexts.

In the late 20th century, many sociologists saw antisemitism as a spent force, but in recent years, its immense destructive power has been evident across the globe and even in the United States. Since October 2023, antisemitism has emerged as a particularly significant threat on college campuses, resulting in discrimination against Jewish students and a host of adverse psychological consequences. The ideological climate on campus has also led to poor clinical services for Jewish students. In Part One, I lay out the background; Part Two deals with the implications for Jewish students and their parents.

The Current Moment

Despite the historical prominence of Jews in psychotherapy, quite a few contemporary therapists are ill-prepared to meet the needs of many Jewish clients in the world that has emerged following the Hamas attacks of October 2023. In part, this problem is a consequence of a widespread failure to grasp or acknowledge how rapidly the circumstances of Jews worldwide, in the United States, and—above all—on university campuses have deteriorated in recent years (Kressel, 2024; Walker et al., 2024). Moreover, the ideological predilections of many psychologists and counselors, including some therapists who hail from Jewish backgrounds, have rendered them especially unlikely to provide helpful services at this critical time to Jewish students—in particular, to those who identify religiously or as Zionists. Deficiencies in how the antiracist community has conceptualized antisemitism also contribute to insensitivities, as do some inadequacies in clinical training.

For many Jews in the United States and abroad, the atrocities of October 7th, the murder of hostages, and the perceived abandonment of Israel by the far left have been very personal events with personal consequences. The prominence of the anti-Israel left on campuses where students live and work and the perceived tolerance for antisemitism by some university officials have amplified these consequences for many young Jews. Much research has documented the adverse effects of perceived discrimination on psychological well‑being. Reactions to antisemitism can include anxiety, depression, low self‑esteem, reduced life satisfaction, and feelings of marginalization; there can also be physical symptoms (Hodge & Boddie, 2021; Rosen et al., 2018).

Several weeks after the Hamas attacks, FBI Director Christopher Wray declared that antisemitism was reaching “historic” levels and that “the Jewish community is targeted by terrorists . . . across the spectrum,” including foreign and domestic militants. The United States House of Representatives approved (with bipartisan support) a resolution which condemned support of terrorist organizations and denounced antisemitism on college campuses. Supporting the resolution, Utah Republican Representative Burgess Owens said, “Hateful acts of antisemitism are spreading like wildfire across American college campuses.” President Biden similarly announced his concern about the rise in campus Jew-hatred.

Therapists need not share the political, religious, or ideological views of their clients, but they should be culturally sensitive and aware of basic facts affecting the lives of those they counsel. Many current therapists do not have the necessary background on contemporary anti-Jewish hatred to be helpful.

Recent History of Antisemitism in the United States

Antisemitism in the United States had been intense and widespread in the 1930s, but surveys showed a dramatic drop by the 1970s—and levels remained fairly low for decades. Many Americans expressed positive sentiments about Jews and overwhelming sympathy for Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, perhaps starting about a decade ago, things began to change—at least in some subgroups of the population (Kressel, 2024):

• A study of FBI statistics indicated that anti-Jewish hate crimes increased 63% from 2023 to 2024.

• Another 2024 study found that, although most non-Jewish students showed no hostility to Jews or Israel, about a third did hold such negative feelings. Almost a quarter of non-Jewish students overall said they didn’t want to be friends with people who supported Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. Many sympathized with Hamas, despite its overt antisemitism and designation as a terrorist group by the United States government.

• A 2020 Pew study found that 45% of Jews in the United States thought that there was “a lot” of antisemitism in the country; an additional 47% thought that there was “some”. This finding might capture incidents that aren’t reflected in studies of hate crimes and survey reports.

Antisemitism and the Therapy Professions

Despite all this, antisemitism is not generally addressed in any depth in multicultural materials used to train psychologists, psychiatrists, and others who deliver mental health services (Hodge & Boddie, 2021, 2022). Textbooks and courses in racism and discrimination—sources for many therapists—also tend to ignore or downplay contemporary Jew-hatred (Kressel and Kressel, 2016; Kressel, 2017; 2021). Moreover, according to at least one qualitative study, students who during their training as counselors attempt to raise concerns about the omission of Jews from multicultural modalities can find themselves bullied and ostracized.

While the concept of microaggressions is somewhat controversial, it is widely employed in counseling and psychotherapy contexts. Hodge (2020) lists several categories of microaggressions that specifically relate to Jews: For example, exoticizing Jewish spirituality, assuming uniformity among the Jewish population, sanctioning antisemitic tropes and stereotypes, and denying the existence of antisemitism. A recent German study similarly concluded that Jewish mental health suffers in response to a broad range of antisemitic acts—even those that don’t seem to be major hate crimes.

After the reaction to the 2023 Hamas attacks, some newspaper headlines referred to Jewish feelings of abandonment by the left, which most Jews previously had thought of as allied in the war against hatred. Some writers further charge that neglect of antisemitism may, paradoxically, be strongest in parts of the antiracist and human rights communities (Bernstein, 2022; Kressel, 2017). Speaking about antisemitism associated with the Israel–Hamas conflict, Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, claimed that the antisemitic bigots “aren’t neo‑Nazis, or card‑carrying Klan members, or Islamist extremists. They are in many cases people that most liberal Jewish Americans felt previously were their ideological fellow travelers.”

Especially in the aftermath of the 2023 Hamas attack—but also before—journalistic reports asserted that some elite universities had become centers of anti‑Zionist and antisemitic sentiment. Many Jewish students have become so uncomfortable on university campuses that large numbers are now considering campus culture of Jew-hatred in making decisions about where to attend.

Still, psychologists—despite their history of important work on the Holocaust—have devoted astonishingly little attention to contemporary antisemitism. The topic is essentially absent from texts and courses dealing with racism and bigotry (Kressel, 2017). As David Bernstein (2022) has argued, diversity, equity, and inclusion programing excludes it—often on the grounds that Jews are deemed to be privileged within the societal power structure.

Conclusion

Despite the positive opinions that many Americans hold regarding Jews, antisemitism has been increasing rapidly around the world, in the United States, and especially on university campuses. The response of clinical and research psychologists to this growing bigotry has been inadequate, and—as a result—Jewish students are suffering. In Part 2, we will outline the implications for Jewish students and their parents and consider what can be done.

Part 2: By Neil J. Kressel, Ph.D. and Brandy Shufutinsky, Ed.D., LSW

As previously noted, antisemitic incidents have seen a marked increase since the October 7th Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel, with school campuses seeing a significant number of reported incidents. This increase, coupled with the lackluster response by administrators and educators, has serious implications for the mental health of Jewish students and for Jewish parents who must rethink how to support their children as they face Jew-hatred on campuses across the United States.

Mental Health Implications of Current Antisemitism for Jewish Students

Jewish students on campus are likely to find therapists steeped in a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology that frequently downplays the prevalence and virulence of antisemitism (Hodge & Boddie, 2022). Yet during the past year, Jewish students have experienced a host of sometimes devastating problems for which many require counseling and therapy (Kressel, 2024).

Perhaps the most significant psychological stressors are associated with watching the videos documenting Hamas atrocities (Holman et al., 2024). Clinicians and researchers have shown that viewing videos of the murders and sexual assaults of October 7th can frequently result in posttraumatic stress disorder and other forms of intense anxiety. Depression and physical symptoms occur often. The subsequent release of films showing tortured and terrified hostages over a lengthy period has been unbearable for many Jewish students.

The psychological consequences are even more devastating for students with family in Israel and those who identify emotionally with the young people who were brutalized during a peaceful music festival in the desert. Some of the hostages (such as Edan Alexander), after all, are Jews who were raised in the United States. All of this can become intensified and extremely psychologically disorienting for Jewish students who see administrators, faculty, and other students—some Jewish—who do not share their horror at Hamas activities and who may even express sympathy for the perpetrators of the atrocities. Many Jews are frustrated that they cannot convince others that “Globalize the Intifada” and “From the river to the sea” are calls for violence against them. Jewish students who experience symptoms in reaction to the atrocities, the videos, the lack of support, and the active attacks by fellow students and faculty would clearly benefit from psychotherapy provided by sensitive practitioners.

A wide range of problems may stem from the attacks and the responses observed on campuses. There is, of course, some degree of terroristic threat, and while this may not be highly probable, the threat may loom large in the minds of some students. More commonly, issues associated with the reaction to October 7th can cut to the core of student identity, impacting friendships, romantic involvements, and career ambitions. Such concerns can easily become psychologically consuming and a dominant clinical concern for Jewish patients. At the very least, events on many campuses have caused a segment of Jewish students to feel alienated from their universities and various campus institutions. Jewish students may face:

• a loss of friendships after October 7th due to political realignment;

• exclusion or mistreatment by DEI policies and officials;

• a sense that they are targeted by Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) resolutions and—sometimes—a need to switch academic majors away from disciplines that have endorsed BDS (anthropology, American studies, and women’s studies);

• if desired, an inability to find supportive LGBTQ+ and feminist organizations (where such organizations are dominated by anti-Zionists);

• psychological—and sometimes physical—harassment by pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas campus activists (especially where encampments exist);

• exclusion from certain careers (e.g., in the arts, academia, and human rights) where DEI, BDS, anti-Israel, and antisemitic attitudes predominate; and

• fears concerning a future where demographics and politics seem likely to make things worse.

All of these issues deserve the attention of sensitive therapists. Unfortunately, many Jewish students worry that they will encounter antisemitic or anti-Zionist therapists who consider the promotion of Palestinian activism as one of their therapeutic goals.

The Implications for Jewish Parents

Failure to address campus antisemitism at the college level reached peak attention after October 7th, especially with the building of Zionist-free encampments and the subsequent congressional hearings. There are numerous media reports of Jewish parents pulling their children out of K-12 schools and either transferring them to other public school districts or enrolling them in Jewish day schools or other private schools.

When Jewish students report antisemitic abuse they’ve faced, the response tends to be gaslighting, which can manifest in multiple ways, including: (a) denying the incident was antisemitic, (b) justifying the incident, or (c) no response. Unfortunately, we’re seeing administrators perpetuating campus antisemitism by actively or passively engaging in it, further victimizing Jewish students and leaving Jewish parents without proper recourse.

Because Jewish people tend to highly value education, antisemitism at schools can be a particularly shocking and painful experience for students and their parents. Often, they feel a loss of connection to these institutions and subsequent grief and confusion about how to continue their pursuit of knowledge.

Many Jewish parents are experiencing a sense of powerlessness. Normal steps taken to address antisemitism are proving to be useless because those systems are not functioning or are actually contributing to the very thing they should be working to address. Responses from Jewish parents vary widely, from strong advocacy to more avoidant styles. Many Jewish parents often attempt diplomacy first, encouraging their children to report the incident, notify the authorities, or not rock the boat. If administrators ignore, minimize, or justify antisemitic incidents, some Jewish parents may tell their children to avoid engaging with the individual(s) who perpetrate the antisemitism, while others may be able to respond more assertively. This variety of responses highlights the importance in individual differences in reaction to the same incident, which clinicians should hold in mind.

Potential Ways Forward

We need to start by learning more about the effects of October 7th, the atrocity videos, the subsequent hostage videos, and the disconnect between Jewish feelings of horror and campus reactions of disinterest and/or opposition to Israel. We need to know how these issues have been playing out in families and for children of different ages. We need a better sense of how clinicians can intervene effectively to help Jewish clients navigate the new psychological and political realities of Jewish life in America. We also need to better understand whether it is possible to change the attitudes of faculty, administrators, DEI professionals, and others who have sometimes shown insensitivity to the psychosocial needs of Jewish students. Finally, it would be useful to identify cognitive and emotional coping strategies for Jewish students (and parents) facing the range of problems identified above.

Conclusion

Therapists who are hostile to Israel or supportive of Hamas in any way should not be treating Jewish clients with any of the needs outlined above. To help these patients find skilled therapists, it may be beneficial for therapists to disclose any strong political opinions. It’s also worth clarifying that potentially helpful therapists do not need to be Jewish, and they do not need to share the political views of their clients. They may provide better counseling by having some rudimentary knowledge about antisemitism, but they certainly do not need to be experts on the topic. An open-minded and supportive attitude toward recent events in this community is a good start.

References

Bernstein, D. L. (2022). Woke antisemitism: How a progressive ideology harms Jews. Wicked Son.

Hodge, D. R. (2020). Spiritual microaggressions: Understanding the subtle messages that foster religious discrimination. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 29(6), 473–489. https://doi.org/10.1080/15313204.2018.1555501

Hodge, D. R., & Boddie, S. C. (2021). Anti-semitism in the United States: An overview and strategies to create a more socially just society. Social Work, 66(2), 128–138. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swab011

Hodge, D. R., & Boddie, S. C. (2022). Are practitioners equipped to work with and advocate for members of the American Jewish community? An analysis of discourse-shaping periodicals. Families in Society, 103(3), 358–369. https://doi.org/10.1177/10443894211028807

Holman, E. A., Garfin, D. R., & Silver, R. C. (2024). It matters what you see: Graphic media images of war and terror may amplify distress. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(29), e2318465121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2318465121

Kressel, N. J. (2017). The great failure of the anti-racist community. In E. G. Pollack (Ed.), From antisemitism to anti-Zionism (pp. 29–68). Academic Studies Press.

Kressel, N. J. (2021). Why so many social scientists misunderstand contemporary antisemitism. In C. E. Blackmer & A. Pessin (Eds.), Poisoning the wells: Antisemitism in contemporary America (pp. 111–128). ISGAP.

Kressel, N. J. (2024). The psychology of contemporary antisemitism. In T. Nelson (Ed.), Handbook of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Kressel, N. J., & Kressel, S. W. (2016). Trends in the psychological study of contemporary antisemitism: Conceptual issues and empirical evidence. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 38(2), 111–126. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2016.1164704

Rosen, D. C., Kuczynski, A. M., & Kanter, J. W. (2018). The antisemitism-related stress inventory: Development and preliminary psychometric evaluation. Psychology of Violence, 8(6), 726. https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000208

Walker, L. E. A., Cole, E., Friedman, S. L., Rom-Rymer, B., Steinberg, A., & Warshaw, S. (2024). The American Psychological Association and antisemitism: Toward equity, diversity, and inclusion. American Psychologist. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001369

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Responding to Therapist Activism: New Strategies for Change

By Val Thomas, DPsych

Given the influence of activist approaches to therapy, it’s worth asking how the politicization of therapy can be addressed and how its negative implications can be mitigated. This is a multifaceted problem, and it’s now deeply entrenched in the field. Five key domains are presented: public outreach, knowledge production, therapy practice, therapy bureaucracies, and last—but not least—therapy training.

Public Outreach

A significant problem is caused by failing to label therapy services clearly. The terms “therapist,” “counselor,” “psychotherapist,” and “clinical/counseling psychologist” are used indistinguishably by classical/traditional practitioners and activist therapists. As the general public is not aware of the big changes happening within the therapy professions, there is the potential for a mismatch between client and practitioner. There is plenty of research evidence indicating poor outcomes when clients suspect their therapists are opposed to their values and beliefs (Redding & Cobb, 2023). In order to reduce mismatches, we should focus on educating the general public so that the selection of a suitable therapist is better informed. This could be done through

• a determined effort to provide information through accessible op-eds and podcast interviews. Good examples would be Lisa Selin Davis’ piece on how therapists became social justice warriors and Andrew Hartz’s essay on therapists who are hostile to their clients’ beliefs; or

• a campaign to differentiate established traditional/classical therapy from activist approaches in the marketplace. One strategy would be to encourage traditional/classical therapists to positively market themselves as such. Another strategy would be to characterize “activist therapy” more accurately as a different type of cultural practice altogether; one recent suggestion is to style “activist therapists” as “identity practitioners.”

Knowledge Production

Due to the political capture of the academy and the academic/legacy publishing industry, knowledge production has become biased. Critical Social Justice (CSJ) concepts embraced by activist clinicians, such as “intersectionality.,” “white fragility,” and “microaggressions,” are accepted as axiomatic truths. The gatekeepers (commissioning editors and reviewers) are preventing the publication and dissemination of critical perspectives, and, operating in tandem, they have made certain topics impossible to research. However, there are a few hopeful signs that some cracks are appearing in this wall; for example, recent papers have critiqued psychotherapy’s embrace of diversity initiatives (Sedgwick, 2022) and the taking up by psychoanalysis of a transgender-affirmative approach (D’Angelo, 2024).

One area of focus must be determined attempts to investigate this new politicized therapy empirically. Although it is difficult to operationalize activist therapy for research purposes, there are some other potential avenues. Researchers could study:

• the mental health implications of holding particular CSJ-informed beliefs. One such recent study (Barry, 2023) indicated a link between poor mental health in men and acceptance of the currently fashionable negative characterization of traditional masculinity; or

• the challenges faced by classical/traditional therapists working ethically in politically hostile environments. A recent study (Jenkins & Panozzo, 2024) explored strategies used by gender-critical therapists in order to guard against accusations of conversion therapy.

Therapy Practice

While activist clinicians are busying themselves with instantiating or further consolidating critical consciousness in their clients, it is crucial that traditional/classical therapists start to think about ways to help clients who present with harms caused by a politicized and polarized culture. In other words, an important focus should be working on the therapeutic antidote. This could be supported through:

• Developing informal professional consultation groups where practice issues can be shared. It is hoped that within supportive professional communities, classical/traditional practitioners can begin to pool ideas on how to work with these emerging challenges in practice;

• Developing formulations informed by classical theories/modalities that can be adapted to clinical practice in an increasingly politically/socially polarized environment—for example, understanding gender dysphoria from a psychodynamic perspective (van Zyl, 2024); and

• Not allowing CSJ concepts (microaggressions, white supremacy, intersectionality, inclusion, etc.) to go unchallenged within wider or more general therapy professional settings.

Therapy Bureaucracies

The therapy institutions hold a great deal of power: They set standards for professional practice; issue guidelines; provide a stamp of official approval through formal accreditation systems; and, in jurisdictions such as the UK, they can operate as quasi-regulators. Unfortunately, activist bureaucrats have wielded their power to retool therapy practice along political lines.

There are two possible routes forward:

• accept that these bodies are not recoverable and begin the slow and difficult process of building new ones—this is happening in higher education with the establishment of new universities. This strategy of creating “parallel structures” to resist oppressive authoritarian regimes was pioneered by the Czech dissident Vaclav Havel (2018). We can see the beginning of this in new organizations such as the avowedly apolitical International Association of Counseling and Psychology and other smaller-scale attempts to develop alternative registers for practitioners; or

• start to reclaim the legacy organizations by moving into positions of power within the bureaucracies themselves and attempting to reset the agenda along more balanced lines. This move will require determined individuals who are prepared for battles of attrition. A recent example from the UK demonstrates it is possible to break the activist stronghold: The UK Council for Psychotherapy (the UK’s second-largest membership body) recently withdrew its signature from the trans-activist Memorandum of Understanding on conversion therapy. Subsequently, trans activists attempted to have the UKCP’s board of trustees fired—a move that proved to be unsuccessful.

Therapy Training

Possibly the most concerning of all the domains is the political capture of training institutions. New generations of professional therapists are being trained to view the client through an identitarian lens and diagnose the client’s difficulties as being solely determined by their membership of oppressed or oppressor groups. These ideas are being instilled with the help of unsuitable anti-relational training methods and radical changes to the curricula. A recent independent inquiry carried out in the UK exposes the extent to which clinical psychology training courses are being “decolonized”. Anecdotal reports suggest that therapy trainees are more likely to be admitted if they are already in sympathy with “social justice activism” (Sefein, 2023). What can be done?

• Provide informal facilitated peer groups for disaffected trainees where they can be supported in navigating captured training programs.

• Provide online seminars and short courses in traditional theories and methods to supplement an increasingly narrow curriculum.

• Use legal means to challenge the bullying and discriminatory actions of training institutions trying to impose political viewpoints. For example, see Leslie Elliott’s case against Antioch University and James Esses, who successfully fought a high profile case against his UK training institute, Metanoia, after he was expelled for his gender-critical views.

• Initiate more debate about the demographics of the therapy profession. Over the last 10 years, the female-to-male ratio has remained pretty consistent among therapists in the U.S. (currently, about 70.4% are women, while about 24.7% are men and the remaining 4.9% are unknown; similarly, among psychologists, 57.9% of them are women, compared to 32.5% who are men, and the remaining 9.6% are unknown). This pronounced imbalance has implications in terms of bias. Research suggests that CSJ attitudes are more prevalent among women, and large cohort studies indicate younger women are more likely to sympathize with social justice activism than their male counterparts. As these generational cohorts enter the therapy professions, it is quite possible to envisage an increasing anti-male bias entrenching itself further in the mental health treatment field, and this must be challenged.

Conclusion

A schism has emerged between traditional/classical approaches to therapy and new activist approaches, with both operating under the same name. Practitioners are unclear and clients are confounded, and the therapy professions are in danger of falling into public disrepute.

However, there are ways in which this unhelpful politicized direction of therapy can be corrected. It is now time to act decisively and set the applied psychology, psychotherapy, and counseling professions on a more balanced footing. Then, at a time of great cultural change, skillful therapists can step forward and make a real and valuable contribution to individuals struggling to make sense of their lives and become more resourceful and insightful.

References

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