UnLiberating Therapy

One of the ironies of most counseling and therapy nowadays is that it is constrained by the rules of Political Correctness.

Political Correctness is a set of rules for speaking and thinking. No matter what you experience or think or feel, these rules tell you what the right attitudes are, the right words, the right thoughts.

Anything that contradicts the rules is swiftly and harshly condemned. And so is the person who breaks them.

Political Correctness infects the psychological world at all levels.

This is ironic because when Sigmund Freud, the most famous of the founders of this new discipline, set out to investigate human psychology, he broke and contradicted some of the most powerful rules of his place and time.

He talked openly and in detail about sex.

In our culture we hear and speak about sex all the time. In his, it was a deeply taboo subject.

Very much Politically InCorrect.

Part of the point of therapy is getting at the truth. And especially at truths that we'd rather avoid. (That's why it's so important to work with a therapist you can trust as your ally and confidante, someone who is on your side and respects you.)

So we now have the very ironic situation of the heirs of Freud the taboo-breaker enforcing their own set of taboos and rules and constraints on us. On how we are allowed to speak and think and feel.

Count me out.

When you're trying to deal with reality, pleasing other people --especially people who just want you to go along with their idea of what's "correct"-- is a waste of time.

When I work with men in that confidential counseling space, I don't care at all if they are not Politically Correct.

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A sign of the times

When I was doing internships in middle schools in San Francisco it became clear to me that the high number of boys under medication was part of a feminist education culture that found incipient maleness unacceptable. I used to call this high-risk condition SWM, Studying While Male. I'm not the only one . Boys are under attack because men are. So frankly, a man who wants to work with a counselor would do well to make sure that it's someone who respects who he is. Not just as a "person," but as a man. ---

AndroTherapy SF

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