Can Politically Conservatives Get Competent Psychotherapy? Where would they go to obtain it?
by Dr. John Riolo
It’s really quite ironic. I have been eligible to vote for about 40 years or so. In that time I have never voted for a Republican president from the time of Barry Goldwater to the present day. Yet when I find myself in discussions with my therapist colleagues I feel a compulsion to defend Republicans and conservatives against what seems to me to be unfair criticism. Oh they have a lot to be genuinely criticized for so it is troubling when my colleagues get side tracked. It is one reason we have had Republican Administrations for the past 30 or so. They count on our losing our cool. Of course there was Jimmy Carter, but most of us have forgotten and there was of course Bill Clinton which most of the country wish they could forget.
What my friend Garry Cooper who I respect immensely sometimes forgets or perhaps represses is that in the last 30 or so years the country as a whole has moved very far to the right. It’s understandable that he and other therapists don’t see that since psychotherapists as a whole seem to have been stuck in a time warp of the 60s. As a group psychotherapists from what I can see tend to be skewed disproportionately in one camp, that of the liberal or the left. Is that a good thing for consumers of mental health treatment or the profession? Some of us still act as if we are marching in the streets protesting a long lost war. True we have a current war, but as any historian can tell fighting today’s war with yesterdays tactics is a prescription to defeat.
An example of our time warp, a colleague who is near and dear to me described her practice in the Capital District of NY (Albany). She indicated that many of her current clients are "card-carrying" Democrats who also happen to be lawyers and very astute about the inner workings of politics and government. She claimed to recognize her desire to exchange views with them to learn more and also express her own biases, which of course she realized would be clinically contra-indicated. However she stated that normalizing and validating their feelings are what's important.
But wait. Unless I am wrong NY has a Republican governor, Gov. George Pataki. Until recently NYC had Rudy Giuliani as mayor. That means that at least half of the citizens in NY State and NY City are republican or at least have lost their card to the Democratic Party. They voted these republicans in.
Where can they go to get their feelings validated when they need therapy? Is my friend going to validate their feelings just as much as with her democratic lawyers whom she feels a closer bond? Are we saying they (those who voted for the republicans and Bush) should not receive therapy? Don’t need therapy? Or are they too far gone for therapy? What does it mean when only democrats can get therapy and have their feelings validated or be respected?
What my therapist friends forget or repress is that these elections were not stolen. They won and we lost, sometimes in a close race and sometimes in a landslide. But they won.Garry, tells me that I am making a mistake. Bush republicans he says are not true conservatives. He’s right; they are not. Not like Goldwater republicans who are seen as too left wing for the current Republican Party. Garry says that they are more like Social Darwinists.
But let say he’s right. Darwinists! How ironic yet! Bush is trying to stamp out Darwin. It only a theory Bush says. However that does not address the point. The voters which are slightly more than half of voting Americans voted for Bush and all the other republicans. Can all those voters be Social Darwinists? Are they to be dismissed from help when they need it simply because their idea of natural selection differed from our idea of natural selection?
But what if they were all Social Darwinists? Bush, his supporters and every last person who voted for him! So What! In my 30 plus years of practice I have treated all kinds of people. They include drug addicts, crooks petty and not so petty, fornicators, adulterers, child abusers and at least one mafia hit man. I did not condone their behavior but I did try to treat them if requested. Why should I draw the line at a social Darwinists? It's only a theory anyway ;-)
In closing am reminded by some words of another colleague. She said. "From the social work perspective - you have to have a certain value base in order to serve clients. I believe that most disciplines that therapists are trained under have pretty much the same value base. …. Those that are oppressed need to be empowered and we need to face each client free of prejudice and misconceptions. Because of the value based profession that we lead - most of us tend to be democrat - and most are liberal. "
Well I am a social worker. And I surely agree with my colleague’s statement that a value base is important. I also agree that those values include the belief that the equality of all people is paramount and we should face clients free of prejudice to the best extent possible. . However where is it written that those values are to be found only among democrats and liberals?
In fact the true test of those very values would be in whether I can treat Social Darwinist with the same degree of respect and dignity as the most liberal of democrats.
If we fail to do that it says a lot more about us than it does about republicans, conservatives and even social Darwinists.John Riolo is a psychotherapist, Vice-President of Psychjourney and consumer advocate. He is known as the Insider and sometimes known as the therapist other therapists love to hate. His website Your Advocate Online includes many articles and audio interviews addressing the inner trade secrets of psychotherapy. Listen to his new Internet radio show, The Insider. Contact him at johnr@psychjourney.com