TLPP: Your Therapist is Crazy w/ Andrew Hartz

Andrew Hartz is a psychologist and the founder of the Open Therapy Institute — a national directory of vetted, non-activist therapists, plus a peer-reviewed journal, conference, and podcast. He wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed about political activism in mental health, got a grant to do something about it, and hasn't stopped since.

We talked about: what an activist therapist actually looks like (APA's division on psychoanalysis lists 90 talks with zero mention of therapy, evidence, diagnosis, or treatment — but plenty on colonial domination, carcerality, and proximity to whiteness); how APA accredited a drag show called "Feel the F***ing Fantasy Redux" for continuing ed credits; a keynote speaker who co-translated Communism for Kids and wrote Abolish the Family; clinics diagnosing patients differently based on their race; patients being referred out for having the wrong politics; how mental health activism is backfiring on the people it claims to help (secondary gains and the evidence against rewarding symptoms); when this all started (earlier than you think — 2014, accelerating through 2019); why Lacanian nonsense writing infected academic psychology and what that sentence actually is; what CBT can and can't do; humor as a mature defense mechanism and why patients who laugh have better outcomes; why AI therapists worry Andrew more than most people realize; and Lou volunteering to coach soccer for a team of first graders despite having never played the sport.

Find a vetted therapist → opentherapyinstitute.org

Read the journal → Open Inquiry in Mental Health on Substack https://openinquirymentalhealth.substack.com/?utm_source=global-search 

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 — Intro — Andrew Hartz and the Open Therapy Institute

3:23 — What is an activist therapist? The APA call for papers read aloud

6:24 — APA's division on psychoanalysis: 90 talks, 800 attendees, zero mention of therapy

8:29 — APA accredited a drag show for continuing ed credits

10:08 — Keynote speaker co-translated Communism for Kids, wrote Abolish the Family

11:53 — Lou's SJW Therapist sketch — and how close to reality it actually is

12:21 — Diagnosing people by their race — a white girl's anxiety vs. a black girl's anxiety