When New York Magazine dropped its viral feature “The Therapy That Can Break You,” in The Cut on October 30th, 2025, the internet exploded with hot takes. Psychiatrists and psychoanalysts flooded X (Twitter) with posts claiming they’d been “right about IFS all along.” In this episode, we’re going to completely dissect this article, as well as all the backlash and scandal surrounding it. The question hiding underneath it all is this:
Who gets to own and define the human psyche?
Together, we’ll break down:
- The media’s framing of Internal Family Systems (IFS) as a “cultic fad”
- Psychiatry’s very own record of harm (from the serotonin-imbalance myth to ghost-written SSRI trials)
- How “Castlewood’s” scandals became a morality play for the mental-health establishment
- Why metaphysical and imaginative models of the mind still matter
- The line between healing frameworks and corporate therapy empires
You won’t hear me outright defend IFS or the biomedical model of mental health in this episode. My goal was to expose the hypocrisy that fuels both.
If this episode opened your mind, felt validating, or even challenged your perspective and you’d like to hear more, follow Back from the Borderline on the podcast player you’re on right now. Rate, review and share it to help more people find nuanced conversations about psychology, spirituality, and the culture of healing.
Link to the full article by Rachel Corbett can be found here: https://www.thecut.com/article/truth-about-ifs-therapy-internal-family-systems-trauma-treatment.html
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