A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. – Friedrich Nietzsche
What a Conservative Therapist Thinks About Politics and Mental Health
By Meghan Daum. Ms. Daum is a podcast host and a writer. October 4, 2022.
Partisanship and polarization are everywhere in America these days, from classrooms to board rooms. Americans are sorting themselves into worlds separated by their political beliefs. Why would therapists’ offices be any different? One reason: Therapists seem to be overwhelmingly liberal.
Jack Dog Welch: Why is that, do you think? That’s what I wondered. People toss around terms like ‘liberal values’ and ‘conservative values’ and I am not confident we all really know what those are.
For instance, and I quote from the link above
We found higher levels of more traditionally liberal values (preferences for leaders who promote change and are more inclusive) to predict significantly higher levels of ideological consistency than those who held more traditionally conservative values (preferences for stability and control over inclusion).
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-five-percent/202010/are-psychologists-too-politically-close-minded-today
Really? That’s what you found? That’s like saying Matt Gaetz loves children.
One BIG reason for today’s mental health issues is confusion over up and down, true and false, right and wrong.
Liberal and conservative.
Values? Christian? Ha.
Have to be crazy not to have a mental health problem nowadays.
Do people struggling with mental health issues need to agree with their therapists’ political views to find help? Do conservative therapists have a different perspective on mental illness from their liberal counterparts? What would a conservative therapist say about the anxiety that followed, for some Americans, the election of Donald Trump?
As part of It’s Not Just You, Times Opinion’s project on mental health and society in America, the writer Meghan Daum spoke with Dea Bridge, a therapist in Grand Junction, Colo., who lists her services on conservativetherapists.com, which helps conservative patients find treatment with politically sympathetic professionals. The two spoke about what conservative therapy might look like and how Ms. Bridge views the state of mental health in America today.
This conversation has been edited. [And a few comments added.]
Meghan Daum: The home page of the Conservative Therapists site says: “Half of Americans have conservative values, yet approximately 90 percent of therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists are guided by a liberal or even socialist value system, creating a barrier for conservatives who would prefer talking with a professional who supports their values.” Does that sound right to you? Do you feel therapists tend to be on the left politically?
Dea Bridge: From what I’ve seen, yes.
I’m a little careful about what I say in certain circles because I just don’t know how well my views will be received. I kind of test the room a little bit before I open my mouth too wide. My affiliations — between the military and the law enforcement communities and some of those more hard-line traditional conservative values — really are uncomfortable for some people who are not conservative.
But I guess I didn’t realize how much it came up until Covid. I put my name on that website and I had people from other states calling me to say, “Oh my gosh, I’ve had this kind of experience and so now I’m looking for somebody whose values align more closely with mine,” and that’s really when I started thinking, “Wow!”
Daum: What kinds of experiences were they talking about?
Bridge: Basically, that they’d had liberal therapists who tried to tell them that their value system was wrong and they should think differently and then their lives would be different. When you’re basically slamming somebody’s belief system — how can you have a therapeutic relationship like that?
Daum: Can you give some examples? Were they talking about situations with friends? How much of it was very particular to this moment, this political climate, as opposed to something that could have been going on, say, 10 years ago?
Bridge: I would say the people who came to me talked very specifically about what is happening now. Whatever was happening before, for whatever reason, wasn’t as big a presence in everybody’s life. Just everywhere you look, there’s so much divisiveness. We spend a lot of time, even now, in individual and group sessions talking about how to manage the divisiveness.
Daum: And they feel they can’t say that to another therapist? They are actually saying something that is as anodyne as what you just said wouldn’t land well with a lot of therapists?
Bridge: Some people say, “I couldn’t work with this therapist,” and there’s probably others who are just afraid to say anything, because they don’t know if that person will be able to be professional and be objective and allow them to just be who they are regardless of their personal views.
Daum: When did you go to school to be a therapist?
Bridge: I started in 2014. Before that, I was in human resources and a whole bunch of other things. I have a really long résumé, different fields. I decided at 50 this is what I want to do.
Now I’m a licensed professional counselor. I did my training through a program at a private Christian college.
Daum: How is that different from a secular program?
Bridge: Religion and spirituality were very much woven into things — looking at and using scripture. But it wasn’t so overbearing that people who maybe didn’t have a strong sense of faith would be put off by it. It didn’t overburden the program and the learning, but it came from a Christian worldview.
Daum: So let’s take an example: If a couple comes in for marriage counseling — to a therapist like you, someone who takes a conservative or Christian approach — would you say that the goal, ideally, would be to keep this couple together? And might this be different from how another therapist might approach this same couple?
Bridge: That’s kind of a loaded question. I don’t do marriage counseling because I don’t want to be in that position. I have done some couples work, but in fact, the one couple that really sticks out in my mind divorced. I met with them individually, and after meeting with the wife, her vision of the marriage was so oppressive to her — it was making her ill. And we talked about her willingness to be in the relationship. So I would never be the one to say you have to make it work at all costs because this is what God wants. That’s not my job.
Jack Dog Welch: I recently found myself in agreement with both Bill Barr and Dick Cheney. Am I losing my mind?
Daum: Do you think that conservatives are less likely to go to therapy in the first place?
Bridge: I would say yes. I don’t know if that’s a truth or just something I feel, but if you look at the ideology around conservatives, particularly out West, it’s this up-by-the-bootstraps, don’t-need-your-damn-help kind of thing. I’ve even met with people from the East Coast who’ve come out and done presentations and they say, “Wow, everybody’s really resistant out here to help.” It’s a very different mentality.
I would say the stigma that has been with mental health for a long time is decreasing; people are more open and they’re talking about mental health issues more now than they ever did. But, by and large, I would say conservatives are less likely to seek out therapy.
Daum: If you were a conservative Christian, you would be more likely to go to Christian counseling, right? That would be the first stop you would make instead of therapy.
Bridge: Perhaps, or even just go to the church and seek counsel but not counseling.
Daum: It sounds like you’re not letting your personal values intrude on the work you’re doing with the client. Is there an example of any type of problem or issue that you would just not be comfortable engaging with because of your views?
Bridge: I had a transgender client, but we weren’t working on transgender issues. It was somebody who we took in as a result of a probation contract [Ms. Bridge’s practice works with people who are involved with the criminal justice system]. I could have passed this person off to someone else, but I didn’t because we weren’t there to talk about transition-related issues. Obviously, those issues enter into the person’s life but that wasn’t really the primary focus of treatment — so we focused on the main issue.
I don’t intentionally seek out people needing services for those types of things because it’s just not my forte, and it doesn’t align with my values.
Daum: Hypothetically, if clients did come to you and they were transgender or if they were coming to you because their child was identifying as transgender, would you say, “I’m going to refer you to somebody else?” Or do you think you would try to work with them?
Bridge: I think it would be in their best interest for me to refer them to someone else from the get-go, because if I give it a go for my own curiosity and it fails miserably, then I haven’t done the client justice. They need to get to somebody who is going to give them the best chance of success.
Daum: If somebody came to you and was pregnant and strongly considering strongly getting an abortion — how would you handle that? Would you share your opinions at all?
Bridge: I think I would just help these clients figure out what they could live with. I obviously have a conservative value about that, but I also realize my life is not going to be affected by their choice. They have to figure out what’s in the best interest of everyone involved and what they are going to be able to live with, what their conscience will tolerate. It’s not my job to bang on the Bible and say, “You’re going to hell.”
Daum: We’re hearing a lot now about a mental health crisis among everybody, but especially among young people. Do you have any thoughts about that? I know that’s a huge question.
Bridge: I have a lot of thoughts about this. Kids spend way too much time on social media and not enough time in relationships. Not enough time outside. Not enough time eating good, healthy food. There’s a lot of this mental health crisis that I think is related to environment and unhealthy modeling of relationships.
Daum: Do you see that as a conservative outlook?
Bridge: I just think it’s a people outlook. It doesn’t matter what ideology you have — if kids are stuck on a computer all the time and eating junk food, they’re not going to be good, healthy individuals.
Daum: Everything you just said sounds pretty logical to me, but I’m wondering if another kind of therapist would say, “Well, we have to meet these kids where they are and maybe they want to have a life where they sit in front of their screens and we need to adjust.”
Bridge: I think everybody talks about healthy choices. But I think in general we’ve lost the ability as a society to have good boundaries. I think, just in general, we overshare.
Daum: Do you think that people want to have psychological disorders when they don’t? There is this phenomenon on TikTok where these kids are performing having certain kinds of diagnoses — Tourette’s syndrome or obsessive-compulsive disorder — and there’s a social currency in having a diagnosis. What do you think that’s about?
Bridge: I do think there’s this labeling that takes place. I’ve actually had clients resist getting a diagnosis because they don’t want the label and then I’ve had ones who can sit there and read off a list of all the disorders they have because they know that if they’re ill, then they’re not responsible for their choices.
Daum: And you would be inclined to tell them to be responsible for their choices.
Bridge: Absolutely. You have the responsibility to be responsible. You are given free will — don’t squander it.
Jack Dog Welch: When the most powerful man in the world tells you not to believe what you see and what you hear, just forget everything you were taught in church, and the shifting rule of law or science, well, hell, nobody ever seems to know what the hell is going on. And the lizard people control the Supreme Court.
Daum: So what kinds of problems do people come to you with?
Bridge: A lot of anxiety, depression, adjustment disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder. I don’t take on people with acute mental disorders like schizophrenia and things like that.
Daum: I’m glad you mentioned PTSD. What does PTSD mean to you? How does one qualify for that diagnosis?
Bridge: There’s a very specific list of criteria. You know when you find yourself unable to live daily life because you have certain recurring thoughts. These things that happen that are intrusive in your life to the point that you can’t go out of your house anymore — all you want to do is engage in substance abuse because you can’t stand the thought of reality or you can’t keep the demons away at night, you can’t sleep because of your ruminating thoughts. Those are some hallmarks of PTSD. I’m talking about things that are beyond the normal response to an adverse situation. Two people can see the same horrible thing and one might have PTSD as a result and the other might not. It’s how you process the situation.
Daum: Do you think the word trauma gets overused?
Bridge: Yes, absolutely. There’s trauma little t and trauma big T. I do think “trauma” gets thrown around and I don’t know if it is used because people think, “She has trauma so we should be gentle. We can excuse her behavior.” We’re back to that labeling thing again. Did you just experience something that was really awful and you’re having a normal reaction to a really crappy thing and you’re going to get over it? I don’t think we breed resilience into people anymore.
Daum: I was going to ask you about resilience. I guess in some people’s minds, it maybe falls into the category of up-by-the-bootstraps. On the other hand, it’s pretty important. Is it something that you talk about directly in your sessions with people?
Bridge: Absolutely. Even though we endure horrible things, we need to learn how to move through them. Part of building resilience is falling flat on your face and figuring out how to build your life better.
Daum: Do you think your clients tend to be less resilient than people 30 years ago?
Bridge: Gosh, 30 years ago? I wasn’t a therapist then. But just looking at people in general and the environments that I have worked in, I would say that we’re not as resilient on a whole, because we really haven’t had to be. There are so many things that are provided and given — all with really good intentions. But there’s also really something valuable about touching the stove and learning don’t ever touch it again. We can’t always just give you an oven mitt.
Daum: What do you think is making everybody so unhappy these days?
Bridge: It’s been decades in the making. We don’t need to do a lot of things that we used to need to do to survive. We’re not really rooted in our own well-being. We’re rooted in self-gratification and, quite frankly, laziness.
A long time ago, I thought about having some sort of a program for people with eating disorders: We would have a garden plot. We would plant the garden. We would put our hands in the dirt. We would grow things, we would cook things, we would make nutritional things — a whole-body experience. Because I don’t think that we get enough of those things in our lives.
Daum: But what is somebody supposed to do if they are working in a cubicle and they need to keep doing that to survive? They’re trying to find a life partner but they’re dealing with dating apps or they’re just dealing with the world as it currently exists. I think a lot of people feel like it’s just become unmanageable — maybe even unlivable — and you can’t really tell somebody, “OK, go back to the land and grow a garden and that will solve everything.”
Bridge: I think that’s the key: How can you make even the intolerable tolerable? There’s just so much negativity out there. People get stuck in it and they build themselves a prison. You have to find your own will and your own meaning and your own reason to wake up in the morning. Whatever it is — the goldfish or the plant in your apartment or volunteer work or helping Mrs. Jones with her groceries. You need to find something to make yourself useful and get off the pity pot.
Daum: On the Conservative Therapists site, you said: “I am a counselor with strong conservative beliefs. While I do work with a wide variety of adult clients, I don’t compromise my beliefs in the course of my work.” What would compromising your beliefs entail?
Bridge: Well, here’s an example: If somebody does come to me with this very victim-oriented mentality, somebody who refuses to take any responsibility for his own well-being. We’re going to work with that until I feel like I don’t have anything else to say. I’m not going to suddenly coddle somebody because he thinks that’s what I should do for him. We get to a point where I don’t think this is working anymore for either one of us. That’s a value I have.
And there’s a difference between that and somebody who’s severely depressed. I get if you’re depressed. You can come off like a victim because you’re just not in a place to see it any other way.
Daum: Do you think that Donald Trump made everybody go crazy?
Bridge: What do you mean by “made everybody go crazy”?
Daum: In my world, I know a lot of people who were so distressed about the election of Trump that they had to go on anxiety medication. They couldn’t sleep. It dominated their lives, their goals, their thoughts, their relationships, their conversations for four years and even to this day.
Bridge: That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Why would you let one person in the world control your life? Are you that weak?
Daum: They would say, “Well, he is the president of our country.”
Bridge: There were people who thought that Barack Obama was the Antichrist, too. They lived through that. People don’t agree with Joe Biden now, either. If you really give that much control to someone, there are a lot more deficits in your life than you recognize.
Jack Dog Welch: Is ‘both-siderism’ a conservative value, I wonder. In an existential battle between reality and alternative facts.
Daum: What do you think would improve the mental health of Americans? There seems to be a huge crisis. We’re having people die deaths of despair. Especially among men, especially in the working class. Probably a lot of the sort of population you deal with. Where do we begin to try to solve this?
Bridge: I read an article within the last six months that really looked at multiple areas of society and compared it to how things used to be, 40 or 50 years ago. We’re very far removed from moral absolutes. We’re very far removed from knowing how to set good boundaries, how to manage our time. We’re very reactive. We’re not necessarily proactive.
We’ve lost the ability to be in the present moment. There are so many things that we could do differently. You know, I have a work phone and a personal phone and on the weekends and evenings, I have very specific business hours. I set boundaries because if I don’t, I’m not going to be healthy. I can’t be an unhealthy therapist.
Daum: So here’s my last question: What is the best thing people can do for their mental health?
Bridge: Fix your diet; examine how you’re spending your free time and who you’re spending it with; just take responsibility for your choices and stop blaming other people for your feelings.
Jack Dog Welch: Wow. Almost like she is trying to send a message to her own people. Right? I feel like she’s being conservatively ironic but I don’t blame her.
Anything else would be just, you know.
Jack Dog Welch: Remember the Psych Today article I opened with?
Yeah, me neither. But here’s how it ends:
The implications of these findings for psychology, and for America more generally, are straightforward. According to our results, the more liberal psychologists are these days, the more partisan and conforming they will be in their views on the major issues. This raises concerns about our capacities as a field to work constructively, empathetically and therapeutically with large segments of the population, or to help heal our current gaping political divide.
Second, they suggest that perhaps viewing change and stability, and inclusion and control, not as static value differences between partisans, but as potentially reasonable responses to basic human dilemmas that we all must learn to navigate adaptively, may be the key. Recognizing the value and limitations inherent in both sides of what are often presented to us by politicians and the media as partisan litmus tests, may just be one way to help us begin to find our way out of these most divisive times.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-five-percent/202010/are-psychologists-too-politically-close-minded-today
And right there, that’s the problem.
Just because I am not yet convinced Hillary routinely dines on tartare de infant under a D.C. pizza parlor with JFK Jr., that does not make me a liberal.
And if your conservative values cause you to stick your head deep in the garden compost, do not be surprised at harvest when they come for your produce.
Maybe your pickup truck, too.
Reality is not a partisan issue. Nor a liberal value.
If you need a therapist to tell you that, well, God bless and good luck.
You may be crazy.
