“…the labels of ‘counselling; and ‘psychotherapy’ are now being applied to practices that are political rather than therapeutic”
— Dr Val Thomas, 'Cynical Therapies'
“In the end, no matter how this crisis plays itself out, reality always has the last say.”
— Dr Val Thomas, 'Cynical Therapies'
“Pay heed to the lessons that history and social psychology have taught us, for hatred – even when ‘legitimised’ in the name of ‘what is right’ – will never make the world a better place”
— Dr Kirsty Miller, 'Cynical Therapies'
“Therapists are expected to ‘do no harm’, to be compassionate, empathic, and respectful of their clients, and to treat them as unique individuals. They do not set out to impose a set of political views and values on their clients.”
— Dr Carole Sherwood, 'Cynical Therapies'
“When a therapist has already made their mind up about who and what you are on the basis of your skin colour, they are more likely to cause you harm than to help you.”
— Dr Carole Sherwood, 'Cynical Therapies'
“The history of mental health care, unfortunately, contains many incidents of ‘care’ based on highly dubious beliefs and prejudices. Psychotherapies informed by Critical Social Justice will inevitably repeat these earlier mistakes, as they are yet another example of well-meaning professionals wanting to do ‘good’. ”
— Piers Newman, 'Cynical Therapies'
“The goal is the creation of therapist-activists, who will diagnose presenting problems through a collective lens and use the client-therapist encounter to inculcate an ideology that fosters grievance and victimhood: the only solution offered to presenting problems will be a never-ending political activism.”
— Dr. Val Thomas
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become”
— Carl Jung
“The healthy man does not torture others – generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers”
— Carl Jung
“What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance”
— Epictetus
“Ideas are powerful and there are ideas in psychology that are right and there are ideas that are really wrong. If you raise your kids or you structure an institution around terrible psychological ideas, you’ll get terrible results.”
— Jonathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind documentary)
“The Three Great Untruths: ‘You are fragile’ ‘Always trust your feelings’ ‘Life is a battle between good and evil people’ ”
— Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind
“Increasing numbers of therapists lack the clinical competency to help patients with truly diverse viewpoints. Years of one-sided education have made many of them unable to tolerate being around people with different views, much less support them as empathic therapists.”
