Is Therapy an Opiate of the Masses?

Is Therapy an Opiate of the Masses?

Curt and Katie chat about how therapy can collude with the status quo and has historically failed to serve marginalized populations. We talk about the risks of therapy that doesn’t honor the context and systems within which people and families operate. We look at how therapists can create complacence and obedience if not careful.

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.

In this episode we talk about:

• Criticisms of therapy as an opiate of the masses
• Does therapy reinforce the status quo?
• “Normal” as a culture bound concept
• Feminist Therapy, Liberation Psychology, Decolonized Therapy
• The history of pathologizing or demonizing LGBTQ+
• Therapy as a white construct
• Bias in MMPI and re-norming
• How bias toward “normal” permeates clinical work
• How therapists reinforce systems norms, encouraging placating the system
• First, Second, and Third Order change – Individual within family within the systems within which the family operates
• Individual versus collective change
• The challenge of assessing and treating within the complex overlay of systems
• The limitations of evidence-based treatments
• The vision of acceptance of diversity
• Therapist training gaps
• The Seven-Eyed Model of Supervision
• Impacts for case conceptualization
• Looking at clients as agents of change, as impacted by their context
• Validating experiences, increasing resilience and capacity, empowering client to make larger changes
• Suggesting coping skills without diminishing systemic impacts
• Therapy as a bandaid
• “As therapists, we can do a really good job of moving people to complacence if we’re not careful.” – Katie
• Helping individuals to heal, then moving to “now that”
• The requirement for therapists to be advocates for change within their communities