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Of any purchase of $100 or more. That's promo code Brian. Joining us is Jonathan Alpert. He is a therapist. He's the author of Therapy Nation: How America Got Hooked on Therapy and Why It's Left Us More Anxious and divided.
You can find him on exit, Jonathan Alpert with a T. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining me. Mary, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. This is great.
So, because I will tell you, so I'm a big fan of therapy. I think everybody needs it because everybody's messed up in their own little way. We all got our baggage, right? And then when we have problems later in life, we can't figure out why.
So, I think everybody needs a little bit of therapy. But as you point out, you point out something that I didn't realize. Like, we have had so much therapy as a nation that people now talk like they're therapists all the time. People will psychoanalyze you on X based from eight words you put together in a sentence. And I personally blame Dr.
Philly and Oprah for this phenomenon. But why does everyone now think? Are we not all running around like little mini psychotherapists? I know, isn't it annoying when people say my therapist says? I feel like those are the most annoying words anyone can utter.
But yeah, Dr. Phil and Oprah certainly brought this into modern culture, but that seems like a long time ago at this point. And now we have therapists who I believe are putting this nonsense out there. They're really quick to diagnose people. They're pathologizing ordinary life experiences.
So let's say you had a bad day at work or a fight with your boyfriend. Suddenly that becomes pathologic. Bad day or two. Oh, you must be depressed. boyfriends acting like a jerk.
Well, he must be a narcissist. Girlfriends ask acting a little strange. She must be borderline.
So therapists are very quick to label people and they're putting this out there and then enter into the mix Social media, you have these so-called influencers who are putting out checklists, five things to look for to know if you have ADHD or you're depressed. And people are very, very quick to accept that and then self diagnose. And we have therapy culture that's just everywhere, and that's part of why I named the Buck Therapy Nation. It's so interesting because I I did not put two and two together until I started reading about your book and your theory, and it just suddenly all clicked and made so much sense to me. And I just thought people You know, the left was, you know, they're a little wacky, so I just thought that they were the ones who were running around doing this, but it's not.
But we hear buzzwords now, like my truth. Mom, well, my truth. And I'm sitting here thinking to myself, there's no such thing as your truth. The truth is the truth. And I think this all goes back to therapy.
And we. I think a part of it is a combination of, like I said, Dr. Phil and Oprah, and we put it on TV, and everybody parades their mental illnesses on TV and it makes them a star. And they get affirmation for it. We started to normalize all this stuff and made it normal to just put.
Put it out there. And I think we've kind of. It's almost like people wear this as a badge of honor. I would argue that we should be striving for health and wellness and good, sound mental health, not being proud of our mental illness, whether that's depression or anxiety or more severe disorders. And just to be clear, there are a lot of very good therapists out there, and it is a good thing that there's more awareness of mental health and less of a stigma.
And maybe we do have Oprah to thank for that, and that's a good thing. But that doesn't mean that we should be celebrating our mental health, or I'm sorry, our mental health and illnesses. You know, we should try to be healthier and optimize that and not wear this like a badge of honor and run around with a million different diagnoses. I've heard of patients who come into me and they talk about their prior therapy where they've become so. Uh expert at knowing everything that's wrong with them, going back to their childhood, their diaper days.
They can name every issue that they were ever presented with and every problem that their parents may have caused. And they go to therapy week after week after week, and they can rehearse this stuff so easily, but they're stuck. They're not any healthier, they're not happier, they're not any more fulfilled in their lives. Yet they've been to therapy for decades, and it's a complete, utter, colossal waste of money if you're not actually improving.
So, I think there's a lot of things as I started to think more about this, because you totally took me down a rabbit hole last night, and I hope you're happy. I think that I see a lot of things co- Coalescing here, colliding, coalescing, whatever the word is I'm looking for, because I'm old, is that you know. We have also have a younger generation that had no Obstacles in their life. They don't know how to deal with any kind of adversity.
So they feel that their lives are the worst and everything is about them. There's a lot of central character, main character things going on out there. And with this idea of like, we incentivize. Illness both mentally and physically.
So, if your kid has ADD or ADHD or whatever it happens to be, that kid gets more time to take tests. That kid gets all special things. And your kid is special. And the kid feels special. And everybody wants in on the game, it seems, because everybody has the look-at-me syndrome, right?
I think everybody's got this look-at-me thing, which is why we see people screaming and yelling in parking lots and Walmart, and somebody's got a camera filming them, and they lose their minds. There's no self-control anymore with all of this therapy. Nobody has any self-control, and it just doesn't seem to make sense. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And one of the original titles that we played around with for this book was It's Not All About You.
And that really spoke to just the massive self-absorption and the accommodation culture that I think you're referring to, where people get a pass, they get notes from their therapists for everything. If you need extended time on your test, if you're feeling blue that day, you can stay out of work.
So we've really created, and my profession is largely responsible for this, creating this fragility in our society. And there are such things as bad days and even bad weeks, and that doesn't mean that you're depressed, and that doesn't necessarily mean that you need to have a mental health day either. This, having a bad day and having some mishaps in life, That's how we build character and strength, and how we learn and grow as a person. But if we're constantly being accommodated and patted on the back and made to feel special and never confront it, we're going to stay stuck and we're not going to grow individually and as a society. And that's a real concern of mine as a mental health practitioner.
Yeah, no, absolutely. And good for you for being able to call out your own profession and say, wait a minute, I think we have a problem here. We're going to take a quick break on the other side. I want to talk to you about that and how we turn that around because you've got an entire generation now that, you know, as you said, can go to the doctor. And my husband's a physician and he says these people, I don't have anyone under 45 who comes in who is not depressed or has anxiety.
Like they all got to, they're all depressed and anxious. And most of them don't have a diagnosis.
So we'll talk about that coming back. And also, I want to talk to you about TDS as well. I am so into this. Like I said, you took me down such a rabbit hole last night. Our guest is Jonathan Albert.
He's a therapist and the author of Therapy Nation. Follow him on X at Jonathan Alpert. More coming up on the Brian Kilby Show. It's Brian Kilmade. Warranty.
It's an energy someone gives off when their appliances and home systems are protected by an American Home Shield warranty. Don't worry, be warranty. For twenty percent off plans, visit ahs.com slash listen. See AHS.com slash contracts for coverage details including limited amounts, fees, limitations, and exclusions. Mm-hmm.
The talk show that's getting you talking. You're with Brian Kilmead. Merry Walter for Brian Kilmeet. Our guest is Jonathan Alpert. He's a therapist and the author of Therapy Nation and how maybe a little bit too much therapy has left us very divided and very anxious and very depressed and having a lot of problems, or at least we think we have a lot of problems.
Jonathan, we were talking before the break about how you look at your own industry and you say, I think we kind of did this to ourselves. We're the people who created this problem. If so, how do you pull it back? Yeah, that's a really good question. And some people may argue that it's a business.
Issue where if you get people better and graduate from therapy, then you lose business. And that may be true, but at the same time, the goal should be to help the person and get them better and then rely on word of mouth to get new people. I'm not so sure therapists are fully consciously doing that. I think they just think therapy should be a lifelong activity. For some people, it's become just that.
It's become almost like a lifestyle where they go in week after week, vent, get stuff off their chest, and it feels good in the moment, and then they do it all over again in six or seven days.
So there's a big difference between feeling good and actually getting better. And I talked about this in a 2012 New York Times op-ed piece that I wrote called In Therapy Forever Enough Already. Yeah, I talked about how how People do just that. They go in, they vent, they just get things off their chest, and they feel good, but then they don't really learn how to actually address their issues and move on from them. And people are stuck in therapy.
And I think if we can get back to a place where we establish very clear and concrete goals from day one and then come up with a strategy to reach them, that might be a good start to. Yeah, I think it's a lifelong therapy. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I think it's incumbent upon the therapist to set those boundaries and say to somebody, okay, we're good. You don't need me anymore, because it's kind of like taking a whoobie away from a kid.
You know, like, you don't need the blankie anymore, honey. You can go out and conquer kindergarten all on your own. And to your point, though, it is a money issue. It is at that point because they don't want to lose that income. I got somebody on the hook.
For for life. Yeah, there is that consideration. And I think for some patients, establish some goals, work on getting better for a couple months or six months, eight months, whatever it is, and then maybe go back for a refresher session every couple months. And I have plenty of patients who do just that. They might check in with me once a quarter just to make sure everything's okay.
Or if something comes up in their life, they may see me for a few sessions. But to have this dependence on your therapist and feel like you need to consult them for every Issue in your life. I mean, I've even heard of people consulting their therapist when they don't know what type of gift they should get a friend or a loved one. To me, that's absolutely ridiculous. I've also heard of people running to the therapist because they get stressed out over a pimple.
I would argue this isn't good use of therapy. I would also argue it's a very expensive use of therapy as well. There's that too. When pimples usually go away on their own in a day or two. True.
Very true. I want to switch gears here, and I want to talk a little bit about TDS. And I want to go to Cut 19, Eric. I want to go to The View. Dun dun dun.
And just, this is just such an example of TDS, which I believe is real and alive and thriving. And this is Joy Behar on The View talking about Trump RX and Mark Cuban being involved in Trump RX and Mark Cuban, of course, being a never Trumper. He was shilled for Kamala. Listen to Joy Behar. But even he came around.
Right.
Well, listen to Joy Behar here. You lie down with dogs and wake up with sleeves. All right, McComba R. I mean I I like Mark Cuban. I've always liked him, but this is a mistake.
And once Trump puts his name on prescriptions, we're all going to die, okay? He put his name on the Trump shuttle, the Trump vodka, the Trump University, the Trump Hotel, and my favorite, the casinos, that all went bankrupt. They do not go there. The drugs don't actually have his name. They're existing drugs.
And he's involved with it.
So you heard you've heard Alyssa Farrell Griffin try to jump in there and go, well, the drugs don't have his name. They're existing drugs. And Behart didn't want to hear any facts. It doesn't matter. He's involved with it.
I can't have anything to do with it. Is TDS real?
Well, it's interesting because You know, Trump was also responsible for fast-tracking the vaccine for COVID during his first term. And I've long said that Trump could go on and cure cancer, and people would still find a reason to discredit him or to hate him. As far as TDS, I've made it very clear that it doesn't actually exist. We don't have a diagnosis in the DSM called TDS. But As a therapist, I've been very, very concerned about what I'm seeing in a lot of patients and what we see when we just look at news like we just looked at, that clip in the View, where people are obsessed with Trump, they're highly anxious with all matters related to Trump.
They've become fixated on Trump. They can't sleep at night because of Trump.
So, this looks a lot like other disorders that are actual disorders in the DSM.
So, I've made it a point to say it doesn't exist, but this is what I'm seeing. And we should be concerned. If you can't take a vacation because you're so upset that Trump is in office, you've got some serious problems. And I've seen that with people. Or if you're hoping.
In wishing Trump dead because you don't like his policy or even like him as a person, that's a problem. Or if you're disappointed that the shooter didn't have better aim in Butler, you've got a serious, profound mental health problem. And this is what I'm really concerned about. Yeah, now we I know that um HHS Secretary R. F.
K. Jr. was on with Adam Carolla, and he said that he does believe that TDS is real, and he says he his staff is looking into actually developing an ICD code To make it a legit syndrome. Because to your point, these people are it's Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. There's videos of people in California saying they're not going to vote for Spencer Pratt because he's a Republican and they hate Trump.
Do you think that's the right thing?
Well, I would be happy to speak to RFK Junior about this and provide my experience working with countless patients. And I do think there is something to it, and we do need to look into it. You have to wonder what happens once Trump is out of office in a few years. Will these people have TDS 2.0? Will they just move on to Rubio or Vance or whoever the candidate is?
I think to step back a bit, the left, some people on the left, They need a villain, they need someone to hate, they need someone to blame all their problems on. And we saw this play out with the Luigi Mangion nonsense, where this is grievance culture. People need someone to blame. And right now, it's Trump. People will fixate on him and blame all their issues on Trump.
So I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. I think we could see maybe some sort of disorder that doesn't have the Trump name in it, but maybe a political preoccupation disorder. Yeah, would be something that the people yeah, Jonathan, I didn't mean to cut you short, but we gotta run. Uh, check out the book Therapy Nation, I'm telling you, it is fantastic.
Like I said, went down a total rabbit hole. Thank you so much for joining me here on the Brian Kilmead Show.
