I think this has all been sufficiently covered above, but why the hell not go over it again. There’s a pretty large difference between vetting all your contacts by political affiliation – which would be silly, annoying, and impossible – and establishing a level of comfort when talking to a psychotherapist about very intimate things, including how the current political landscape impacts personal relationships. This should not be hard to understand.
Consider my last post withdrawn, as Mr_Hoogly may not be able to reply (if he wanted to).
I think it’s okay to ask a potential therapist if they’re Trump supporters. My mother’s a Trump supporter, a Covid denier, and believes the recent election was rife with massive fraud and I just can’t speak to her about anything serious. I can’t imagine opening up to a Trump supporter in a manner that leaves me emotionally vulnerable.
It saddens me to say that. I don’t know how to go forward but I hope we can all find some common ground in the future.
Just wanted to say, I know a problem of mine online is mostly voicing my criticism rather than praise. Thanks to @susan and @SmartAleq for sharing very real world experienced views.
The newish terms are “foid” and “roastie.”
Er, no. Trump’s hatred was the signature plank of his campaign, his life. He bragged about sexually assaulting women, for starters, urged his followers to assassinate Hillary, sneered at John McCain’s capture----do I really need to enumerate all the appalling thongs he’s done and said? One cannot argue that his business record counteracted his behavior. Bankruptcies, numerous business failures, the lies, the hiding of the taxes, the gushing over Putin—he had nothing to offer but id. Some politicians appeal to the better angels of our nature. If Trump were to ever attain complete freedom and power, what would je do?
Yeah, let me tell you a few things about the Army and Iraq. The RoE had 5 or 7 levels (it’s been a long time) before we could return fire. Do you understand all the implications there? If the shooter is more than a couple hundred yards away, you won’t hear the weapon at all, just the swwwwwiiiissshhhhhh of the round. We encountered roadsode bombs, snipers, ambushes, vehicle bombs, vest suicide bombers, timer bombs, pressure plate bombs, spottered bombs, all of these with or without ambushes, while your ears are ringing and you can’t hear the ambush, or you’re tying off somebody’s limb with your bootlace.
Two; soldiers are not cops. We are guided by the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions, which among other things require we render aid after hostilities cease. I have in fact done this. Furthermore, in the military, a misfired weapon can take down a whole cadre up to battalion, even if it doesn’t hit anything but the ground. Of course, all units are unique, so you might have a unit like the one that spawned a Steven Green or Eddie Gallagher. The former left base with at least one other soldier and raped and murdered a 14-year-girl he’d been hatassing----then murdered her whole family. Gallagher was so evil his own men turned him in, and fired into the air to warn villagers he was coming. I guarantee you somebody higher up in those units knew something was wrong with those two, which hints at the character of those cadres. A good CO knows his troops. Period. If they don’t trust the CO, they don’t talk—and boy, do soldiers talk.
Third, you know those guys who brag about “kills”? Unless it’s WW2 era, they’re a psychopath.No good soldier wants to kill.
Fourth, pacifists tend to be nicer to soldiers than the “rah rah rah soldiers!” types, who stop supporting the troops when the troop turns out to be a pinko commie liberal hippie feminazi. The Army is the only way out sometimes. (Then there’s the folks who can’t imagine that.)
Fifth, as I sort of half-assed upthread, Trump cannot be compared to anybody else. Choosing him tells you what a person is okay with or indifferent to. I don’t know what’s worse.
Unfortunately for my mental health I know what those terms are and what they mean. Good lord, how many worms can those guy’s heads hold? Plz not to answer that question, don’t really need a factual answer!
I’m really not happy with this imagery. The picture of him in shorts playing tennis was bad enough.
Can I edit it? I’m afraid I already traumatized SmartAleq with Incel speak.
So would you be comfortable with a pacifist therapist?
Nope. Sorry. If they voted for him in 2016 I might be able to think that. If they voted for him in 2020 they are not supportive of our democracy, they don’t value equality, or human life. That’s a whole different thing. I speak as a life long Republican. Now former Republican.
My shrink IS a pacifist. You seem to be going for a gotcha here, so let me point out that people who have fought in wars tend to hate them like nobody else. The anti-war protest movement during Viet Nam contained a lot of ex-soldiers, including John Kerry, who was an actual soldier. The Swift Boat slander campaign should put paid to the notion that one party favors the troops. There is a reason soldiers don’t talk much about war, at least with civilians. My Dad fought in the South Pacific for three years after Pearl Harbor, my uncle in Korea. They told stories (to us) about trench foot and pilots who had to stand on their seats while their plane was revving up. I’ve forgotten why.
But at night, they’d go down to the end of the garden, hike their old man pants a bit at the knees, smoke, and talk where nobody could overhear.
My shrink is your basic mild-mannered, liberal, kind, understanding Alan Alda type. I wish I’d met him about nine years earlier. My previous shrink said, “But WHY do you think there are snipers on the roof?” She’d been my shrink for six or eight months by that point.
Anybody who brags about killing is lying and/or a psychopath. For the uninformed, “confirmed kills” means the guy’s spotter could say, “Yep, sure did!” I knew a guy who bragged about ten “kills”. He was as jumpy as a hypercaffeinated Chihuahua on meth, sweaty, pale, and shaking.
Ha ha, I am. But not on you. @Miller thought the very idea was a trick question. I am not surprised that a pacifist therapist can help a soldier and I’m happy you have someone you trust.
He really is the most lovely kind, mild-mannered, understanding, compassionate man. In some ways, I’d consider myself a pacifist as well. The big difference is that I understand that you can’t count on other people to be pacifist. I guess I’m too pragmatic (and fucking HATE) bullies too much to be pure.
This has happened to me. I’ve seen a therapist for about a year who seems to be almost sort of a Q person. When I mentioned that the direction of the country was really bothering me, it came out. I expected her to just listen to my concerns and perhaps offer some ways to deal with it emotionally, but oh my!
On other topics she offers advice that seems reasonable, but I can’t even really bring up mental health concerns related to COVID because I know she thinks it’s the flu. She said trump would win in a landslide and everyone would stop talking about COVID after the election.
See, there is just no way I could see such a person as a reasonable arbiter of reality, and that would be disqualifying on its face. And if that person’s private views had leaked into our sessions such that I was inhibited from discussing issues of concern to me, as it has in yours, I’d be looking for someone new.
When this topic was raised, I was thinking about the main reason I might seek out a therapist for what currently keeps me awake at night. It’s the immense sense of betrayal I feel by my parents, who over the past 20 years have turned into unrepentant MAGAbots due to their Fox “News” addiction. I’m one of those people who could have written the book/movie about watching their parents turn into people they hardly recognize, thanks to Fox. I love and miss my parents. They are in their twilight years, and for the first time ever, we are estranged over the abomination that has become the Republican party.
There is just no way that a Trump-supporting therapist would be of any use to me in resolving this conflict.
While I appreciate @susan’s approach and would generally respect it, her appropriately-deflective answers to a prospective client wouldn’t be sufficient in my case. I would openly declare my issues and insist on an answer. If none were forthcoming, I would move on.
For your sake, @Skypist, I hope you can find someone who can better address your needs. I the end, you’re paying for help with your issues. The last thing you need is a therapist who prevents you from discussing them by bringing their own private political views into the conversation. My best to you.
Thank you. It does give me comfort to see that others who are also bothered by issues such as trump or Covid feel the need to talk to their therapists about these things also. I felt sort of bad for bringing up political issues with someone I didn’t know well as that’s usually “not done.” But those things are genuinely bothering me; I wasn’t trying to start an argument with a stranger.
It hasn’t occurred to me before to just ask outright about a therapist’s political views but now maybe I will.
Good.
I think it is a reasonable conclusion to this thread that if there are belief and value systems which are causing mental health issues, it is fair to ask your therapist what their relationship is w/ those value systems.
I would go so far to say, though this wouldn’t be nearly as popular, that if you want your therapist to be also trained/participating in these value systems, that’s OK too. If I’m an Orthodox Jew and I want a therapist who, during my sessions, can just as readily quote the Talmud as he can the latest research, then by all means I should seek such a person out.
My Wife is very embarrassed that her side of the family are Trump supporters. They claim that “he is doing fine”. But then I think they follow politics about as much as I follow sports. They are republicans and will vote republican. Case closed.
All in all, we all get along great. We don’t talk politics though. And the last time I visited, my BIL had taken down his Trump/Pence banner. The banner was on the inside of a barn, so I guess that’s luke warm support.