No one wants to be called a coward. But fear is a natural and important human emotion. It gives us caution and hesitance in situations that pose a danger to oneself or others. Nevertheless, fear must be rational, and it must be controlled. Being afraid of the wrong things — or being excessively afraid of things that pose trivial risks — can be crippling.

Despite being a core component of human experience, fear is stigmatized in our society. Americans, in general, tend to be risk-takers. We instinctively recoil at cowardice. So it’s strange that the people who are dedicated to “destigmatizing” everything in our society are the same ones who work tirelessly to amplify the stigma attached to fear.

Don’t accept the framing. Don’t let the debate become a psychiatric evaluation. Don’t apologize for noticing reality.

Here, I refer to a common trend in political discourse — the left’s attribution of “phobias” to political opponents. You know the epithets: homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, transphobia. Some may bristle at the claim that this fixation on phobias is a strategic tactic used exclusively by the political left. But it’s undeniable: What equivalent “phobic” label do conservatives use to discredit progressives?

We don’t have an equivalent.

Are we to believe, then, that the political left is without fear? Certainly not. Many progressives treat Christianity with the same suspicion that some on the right harbor for the LGBTQ agenda. No one calls the former group “Christophobes,” but the latter are routinely charged as homophobic. Globalists often disdain the nationalist politics of identity, referring to nationalists as xenophobes. But no one calls the Americans who disparage everything about our nation “oikophobes” (people with an irrational fear of home).

This double standard shows that the labeling of “phobias” is a rhetorical strategy. But how does it work?

Abusing the ‘phobic’ label

Start by asking who gets branded “phobic” — and for what. These days, it doesn’t take much. Express moral concerns about “gender reassignment” surgeries for children? You’re a transphobe. Feel fatigued by the endless parade of “Pride” observances on the calendar? You’re a homophobe. Object to the illegal entry of millions of unvetted foreigners? You’re a xenophobe — just another American unwilling to embrace people “searching for a better life.”

The ease with which the left assigns the “phobic” label undermines its credibility. Can someone oppose gay marriage without harboring fear of gay people? Can a citizen reject open borders as reckless policy without fearing foreigners? Can one favor vetting immigrants from Muslim-majority countries without fearing Muslims as a group?

Two answers follow. The first, and more reasonable, says yes — of course people can hold such views without irrational fear. That would make the “phobic” smear inaccurate. But if that’s true, why does the left cling so fiercely to these labels? The second answer assumes the opposite: that you must be afraid — of gays, of immigrants, of Muslims — if you hold such views. But if every opinion stems from fear, then “phobia” becomes a catch-all insult, not a diagnosis.

And yet the accusation sticks. Why?

Exploiting social fears

The power of the “phobic” label stems from how society treats fear. We treat fear not as a natural response, but as a sign of weakness or irrationality — especially when aimed at supposedly harmless things.

Admitting fear carries a social cost. Labeling someone “phobic” pressures the person to conform, not through persuasion but through social coercion. It’s a tactic, not an argument. It manipulates the desire for status and respect by suggesting the presence of a psychological defect. And it works — not because it’s true, but because it shames.

Blaze Media

Are unvetted illegal immigrants always harmless? No. Most aren’t violent, but some are dangerous. Yet the “xenophobic” smear exists to deny that fact and humiliate anyone who dares say it aloud. Does importing large numbers of military-age men from Yemen pose no threat? Some Yemenis are admirable people. But recent history offers proof that some have come here to commit acts of terrorism. Labeling such concerns “Islamophobic” is an attempt to gaslight the public — dismissing valid fears and punishing the act of remembering.

Diagnosing as ‘crazy’

The label does more than stigmatize. It diagnoses. “Phobia” is a clinical term. To call someone a homophobe isn’t just to accuse the person of bigotry; it’s to classify the person as mentally ill. Arachnophobes are “crazy.” Agoraphobes are crazy. And society doesn’t argue with crazy people — it ignores them. Once someone becomes “irrational,” you don’t debate that person. You dismiss him. His views no longer require engagement. They require containment.

Attaching a “phobic” label turns political opposition into psychological pathology. It justifies censorship and marginalization. Ironically, the only people the left eagerly diagnoses and silences are those it brands with a phobia. So much for compassion around mental illness.

Conservatives must reject this tactic outright. Don’t accept the framing. Don’t let the debate become a psychiatric evaluation. Don’t apologize for noticing reality. Push back, not only by refusing the label but by highlighting the contradiction. If leftists truly care about destigmatizing mental illness, they should stop flinging “phobia” at every disagreement. Expose the hypocrisy. Force them to play by their own rules — and win.

Overgrown 'Harry Potter' kidults still see Trump as Voldemort

Since at least the 1960s, North American adults have steadily become more childlike. What we call adolescence used to end at around age 17 or 18, but now we grant the right to be childish and irresponsible up until at least age 30.

And with the recent Canadian elections keeping woke crybaby Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in power, the full emotional immaturity of older adults was on display this week.

In fancy psychological terms, this kind of blame-shifting is called having an 'external locus of control.'

More on this below. First, we have to go back in time and set the stage.

Cursed children

It started in the late 1990s, when a children’s fantasy book series took the world by storm; the inevitable blockbuster movie franchise soon followed. In a somewhat surprising twist, fans were as eager to follow Harry Potter's adventures on paper as in the multiplex. With each new installment, breathless news reports showed mothers and children lined up around the block to get into bookstores on publication day.

Adults were delighted to see kids this interested in reading. J.K. Rowling had cast a spell on a generation already succumbing to the lure of constant screen time — even a decade before the smartphone.

But as in many a fairy tale, the spell came with a catch. The kids who were enraptured by Rowling’s saga of child wizards and witches stayed enraptured. Instead of graduating to more sophisticated reading, they chose to remain perpetual Hogwarts students. A 10 year-old immersed in a magical fantasy world is charming; by age 30, the magic starts looking like a curse.

Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff

The most prevalent example was the tendency of fully grown adults to identify themselves by their Hogwarts "house." For those who may have forgotten their Harry Potter lore, upon matriculation, each Hogwarts student would consult a magical “sorting hat," which would assign them to a “house" or dormitory — Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin — based on their characteristics and abilities.

From about 2010, I started noticing 25-year-olds putting “House Gryffindor” on their social media profiles. At red lights, I’d see a car ahead of me plastered with stickers identifying their Harry Potter “house.”

The “grown-ups” were hauling themselves off to Harry Potter theme parks, throwing Harry Potter-themed house parties, and fighting with each other in cesspits like Tumblr over whose magic was better.

Don't be 'mean'

The slide from adulthood into adult infantilization in America has been slow enough that many older people either didn’t notice it or thought it was just a passing trend. As a young adult at the time, I found it baffling and embarrassing.

I was very much in the minority. Whenever I’d remark on how new and strange it was to see 30-year-olds publicly proclaiming loyalty to a movie series for 10-year-olds, other alleged grown-ups would tell me I was either being “mean” or “spoiling their fun.”

When I pointed out that these retorts also sounded like something a 10-year-old would say, you can imagine the response. I was half expecting to be called a booger-head by people old enough to have their own children.

Arrested development

Arrested emotional development is a serious, society-wide problem in America and across most of the industrialized West. In the 90s and early 2000s, we started to notice that young adults were living at home with their parents much longer, were failing to get driver’s licenses and full-time jobs, and spent a lot of time following hobbies and pursuits they developed before puberty.

And despite the insistence that the only reason for this was that it was “too hard” in “this economy” to expect an 18-year-old to go out and get an apartment, that wasn’t true. The helicopter parenting of the 90s, with its insane fixation on safetyism — this is when it became “too dangerous” for kids to walk to school — handicapped the Millennial generation and stunted their maturation.

What we might call “extended adolescence” has moved up in age brackets. Even adults of 50, 60, or 70 years today carry themselves more like what we expected from teenagers sassing back to Daddy-O in the 1950s. And the Canadian elections brought it to the fore.

Maple leaf rag

Back in January, it seemed that Canadians had finally had enough of Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party's policies: the unchecked immigration, the forced vaccinations, the jailing and "debanking" of the Freedom Convoy protesters, the lies about nonexistent “mass child graves” at schools for Indian kids.

Trudeau's popularity had tanked so much that he resigned. The people wanted change, but Trudeau's replacement, Mark Carney, offered little to differentiate himself from his predecessor. Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party was expected to win by its highest margin in years.

That didn't happen. Apparently Canadians were content with business as usual. Why did they throw away this chance to right the sinking ship?

Blame Trump

Trump, of course. At least, that's the reason countless adults on social media and in the news have given for the Canadian election results.

You see, Canadians voted as they did because the American president “made” them too fearful to do anything else. He said mean things. He “scared” the Canadians. His jokes about annexing Canada and making it the 51st U.S. state, you see, were “threats.” People were “terrified” of the mean orange man, and if it hadn’t been for his “bullying,” then Canadians would have been able to put a new party in power.

Consider this chart, posted on X by Jack Posobiec. The survey found that, for Canadian voters 60 and older, “dealing with Trump” was their number one election priority.

That’s remarkable. “Dealing with” the president of another country was more important to this set than the fact that their country has turned into a Communist hellhole.

The bogeyman did it

Here are some typical “thoughts” from Canadian voters and American onlookers taken from threads on X.

“Trump cost conservatives this election.”

“TBH, I dont blame them, when the world's leading superpower who sits on your border implies he's going to take over your country, yeah well it might affect people's decisions.”

“[Trump’s] interference with the Canadian elections was one of the most counterproductive acts I have ever seen a politician do.”

This is absurd. Nay, it’s pathetic. It’s babyish. It’s a child blaming his own bad decisions on some bogeyman because the child wants to escape accountability for his own behavior. Except these are alleged grown-ups.

In fancy psychological terms, this kind of blame-shifting is called having an “external locus of control.” It means that instead of taking responsibility for one’s own decisions and actions, one blames them on someone or something else. It’s a mark of arrested emotional development.

Can we have adulthood back, please?

How leftists think — and how you can change their minds

Doesn’t it seem like Donald Trump has been president for longer than seven weeks?

The administration has accomplished so much in such a short time that it’s easy to forget “we’ve only just begun.” So far, most of the changes that are de-wokifying American life are coming in the form of executive orders.

I never believed a man in a dress was a woman, and really, no one else does either. ... [But] I was afraid that not believing it would make me a morally bad person.

The most consequential moves — for example, protecting children from chemical and surgical abuse in the form of “sex changes” — need to be codified in laws passed by Congress.

Conservatives are celebrating the death of woke; I’m one of them. But if woke is on the wane, it is not dead. It may be in the process of dying, but actual death has not occurred. And its death may be much farther off than it looks.

Right now, less than two months into the Trump presidency, we’re seeing what I call an unveiling. Some call it an “extinction burst,” the idea that people act out their behaviors even more flagrantly just before the social environment changes enough to make their behaviors “go extinct.”

Whatever you call it, we’re seeing the depth of derangement in the woke minds of Democrats and leftists even more starkly than before.

The media is hyperventilating that free speech leads to Nazi pogroms. Leftists are gnashing their teeth over the deportation of noncitizen Mahmoud Khalil, acting as though he has a fundamental right to agitate against U.S. interests while he’s here as our guest (no concern at all for the effect of his agitation on their own countrymen, of course).

Democrat lawmakers shocked by the new reality that people are not going to call mentally ill men “women” any more just because they say they’re women are melting down in emotional tantrums in House committee hearings.

Inside the leftist mind

Here you are, a conservative, wondering just what these people are thinking. Why do they believe what they believe? Do they, in fact, actually believe what they say they believe?

I have these same questions, but I think I also have some of the answers.

Before a years-long process of changing my mind about politics and culture, I was one of them. The backstory that got me to being a leftist Democrat is a backstory shared by millions of people like me. It won’t describe everyone, but the generalizations I’m going to make are drawn from my own experience, and they do describe a large number of leftists and the woke-minded.

The first and most important generalization? Look into the past of any given leftist, and chances are you'll find some variation of ...

Fatherlessness

This is the single biggest factor that predisposes a child to mental troubles and leftist “people are victims of societal forces” ideology.

Not only is fatherlessness damaging to a kid’s normal ability to relate to the sexes, to regulate his emotions, and more, but it tends to coincide with single mothers with feminist attitudes. I never met my father, and my mother married a violent child molester by whom she had two more children.

She kicked him out after he tried to kill her, and the die was cast. To my mother, and by osmosis to me, all men were lazy deadbeats and scum. All the men in her life had victimized my poor, innocent mother, and nothing could be laid at the feet of her own choices.

Thus, the male feminist version of me was born, nurtured by those two companions of fatherlessness ...

Single motherhood and welfare dependency

One day in 1983, a college student stopped my mother on her way into the grocery store asking for her signature on a petition to end welfare fraud. My mother haughtily raised her nose, pointed at us three children, and said, “Do you see any welfare fraud here?”

At home, she’d scream at the television when Ronald Reagan spoke of “welfare queens,” saying there was no such thing and that Reagan was an abusive scum for trying to reform welfare. We were taught that our poverty was the fault of the government and that the government was cruel to give so little to single mothers like mine.

Thus was born my anti-capitalist sentiment that would flower into protesting against “greedy corporations,” my support for absurdly high minimum wages, and more.

As I discussed in my recent review of Adam Coleman's forthcoming book "The Children We Left Behind," modern America gives single moms the “you go girl/slay kween” treatment. We’ve made them heroines who cannot be criticized.

Of course, spending your whole life feeling like a victim of "the system" lets you justify all sorts of ...

Bad adult choices

Children who grow up in neglect and abuse as I did are far more likely to gravitate toward the left because the left embraces victimhood, hedonistic behavior, and self-centered, narcissistic choices dressed up as “self-care” and “self-love.”

As a young adult, I took up the stereotyped behaviors of abused children, living a promiscuous party life, becoming an alcoholic, and blaming all of this on anything but my own choices. Naturally, I surrounded myself with similarly damaged people. Every single one of them, to a man or a woman, was a leftist, socialist, or proud Marxist.

Once you realize the emotional disorder that leads people to adopt these beliefs, you might ask yourself ...

Do they really believe what they’re saying?

Democrat/leftist beliefs are so extreme and absurd in the 21st century that it baffles non-leftists. It’s been eight years since I started changing my mind to what it is today (conservative, anti-woke).

Even though I can remember when I was one of them, today’s leftists have gone farther than I ever did. For example, take the beliefs surrounding ...

Transgenderism

Do they actually, literally believe that a man claiming to be a woman makes him a woman?

Yes and no.

No, not in a literal sense, even though they claim very loudly that they do. The emotional urgency of their claims is used to cover up the fact that deep down, they know it’s insane.

I know this because it used to be me. I never believed a man in a dress was a woman, and really, no one else does either. So why did I say I believed it? Because I was afraid that not believing it would make me a morally bad person.

You see, children from abusive homes are forced into an adult role when they’re still little, trained to become emotional surrogate spouses to their damaged parent. So we grow up believing we are morally obligated to fuss and coo over any person who presents herself as a victim.

No, I didn’t believe these men were literally women. But I did believe I had a moral duty (it works as a religion because it is one) to say that I believed it and to act as if it were true. Fortunately for me, this cognitive dissonance was so severe that I didn’t keep this stance for long.

“Trans” was the first chink in the armor of my leftism. But rejecting it didn't mean letting of my conviction that ...

America is an exploitative, racist, misogynist hell

I’m afraid I did believe this in the literal sense. Looking back, I laugh at myself. How was it possible to believe that blacks in America were just as bad off after the civil rights era as they were during slavery? Given the reality that women in the U.S. can do anything they want for a career and enjoy absurdly generous legal protections and quotas, how could I believe we lived in a “misogynistic patriarchy”?

I'll tell you how: because the crowd around me believed these things.

Who made up this crowd? A disproportionate number of people with personality disorders. Pathological levels of narcissism, extreme emotional instability, and a victim stance toward the world.

Feminism and leftism preferentially attract the personality-disordered because they give mean, lazy, self-centered people excuses to act the way they do and blame their bad actions on outside boogeymen. Capitalism. Men. Colonialism. Heteronormativity. White people.

The point I’m trying to get across is that the beliefs held by people captured in a leftist frame of mind don’t, and don’t have to, have any relationship to reality.

You can’t break these beliefs by presenting objective facts, because these people don’t believe that objective facts exist. Or they do so only when those facts are convenient for their emotional goals.

This is why they get angry or tearful, or scream at you when you offer an article that questions their belief in vaccines, or in "the patriarchy," or in the idea that black people are systematically killed by police.

A deep part of their mind knows that what you’re saying is true, but that is intolerable. Therefore, they punish you with tantrums and reputational smears that get you kicked out of social groups or cost you your job.

Once you understand it as a social contagion, it's only natural to ask ...

Is there a cure for leftism?

The answer is also yes and no. Frustratingly, there’s no technique you can use on your leftist son, or wife, or best friend that will snap them out of it. Human mentation and emotion do not work that way.

We’re not dealing with ordinary political disagreements that we remember from a more collegial past. These leftists are in an actual cult. The same rules apply as do for any cult. They’re not tethered to facts, their commitment is entirely emotionally driven, and no presentation of facts will make any difference.

No one could have “changed” me from a leftist lunatic into a (I hope) saner conservative. I had to face the wall on my own, so to speak. I had to hit rock bottom, as we say of alcoholics.

For me, that came from a confrontation with the reality of how disturbed and morally depraved my own mother was, a confrontation that happened in 2016. A lifetime of abuse I’d rationalized away could no longer be excused. I saw my mother for what she really was — an unstable, vicious narcissist who exploited her loved ones — and my false but well-constructed view of the world started to crumble.

It kept crumbling. After I saw the truth about my family, I saw the truth about my chosen friends and political circle. Surprise! The same resentments, exploitation of others, false claims of being a victim when one is actually the perpetrator — all of these that I saw in my mother, I now saw in the social and political world I’d lived in all my adult life.

Becoming a small business owner dependent only on myself for my livelihood, and moving to the country, cured the last bits of anti-capitalism I had left.

As someone who made it out, I want the same for every poor brainwashed member of the leftist cult — especially people I care about. But experience has taught me that they have to want to be helped first.

In other words, when it comes to your leftist loved ones, the best practice is to ...

Be available, but don't tolerate abuse

Make it clear that you'll be there when and if they’re ready to talk. Be willing to explain your point of view, and offer them articles or videos that demonstrate why you believe as you do.

This may seem rather passive; unfortunately, it's really all you can do. You can’t make them have that final confrontation with reality. That either happens for them or it doesn’t.

At the same time, I urge you not to tolerate their abusive behavior. Expect the same level of respect and civility from them that you expect of anyone and that they demand from you (while giving you no respect in return).

If they won’t do it, stop talking to them. Tell them, “I will not be spoken to this way. We’re not going to talk until you’re willing to behave like a reasonable adult.” Then stop answering the texts, block their numbers, do not respond to attempts they make to engage you or provoke you.

They may be misguided, and many of them are indeed at least temporarily psychologically disturbed. But that is not an excuse for their bad behavior.

If we are to get society back on track, we conservatives have to be the adults who hold boundaries. Narcissistic, awful behavior needs to be objected to in front of others. We need to chastise those who take advantage of our loving feelings in order to treat us badly. We must dis-incentivize the greedy, grasping, histrionic emotional distortions of leftists if want this bulls**t to stop.

Good luck.

Psychology Today's unscientific mission to rebrand sickness as 'superpower'

Scientific American has long traded its credibility for ideology, declaring that biological differences between men and women are imaginary and insisting that sex is merely a social "construct." But if you thought the heights of pseudoscience peaked there, you’re wrong.

Psychology Today seems determined to one-up this lunacy.

One can only wonder what’s next in this circus of rebranding disorder as divine transformation. Perhaps colon cancer will be spun as the ultimate 'spiritual cleanse.'

Neurodiversity: The new snake oil

Consider the outlet's shameless peddling of “neurodiversity” — an ill-defined sound bite used to dismiss decades of research in favor of “affirmations” that feel good but hold no empirical weight.

At its core, neurodiversity refers to the idea that neurological differences, such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, are natural variations in the human genome rather than disorders to be addressed. While this perspective may comfort some, it dangerously romanticizes genuine struggles, brushing aside the critical role of evidence-based interventions.

Rather than promoting treatments that could genuinely enhance lives (and no, I don’t mean pharmaceuticals), the neurodiversity movement often prioritizes celebrating “individuality” at the expense of confronting real, debilitating challenges.

The idea is seductive. But it’s also insidious.

Reject rigorous studies, dismiss proven treatments, and replace them with syrupy platitudes. This isn’t harmless; it creates a culture where legitimate suffering is trivialized and essential interventions are framed as oppressive.

By dressing up illness in the language of empowerment, the movement dissuades individuals from seeking help, subtly convincing them that their struggles aren’t struggles at all. They are, in fact, superpowers. And these superpowers should be celebrated.

Worse still, it labels anyone who dares question this perverse narrative as a bigot — a backward fool unworthy of serious consideration.

Fairy tales for adults

But the absurdity doesn’t end there. Enter “lavender marriages,” where supposedly gay and straight partners coexist in blissful union, a fairy tale entirely unsupported by data.

Yet Psychology Today promotes this idea with a straight face, offering it as a plausible framework for relationships. It’s as though fairy tales have not only migrated from children’s books to self-help shelves but have now infiltrated peer-reviewed journals.

And then there’s the magazine's unrelenting advocacy for "trans-identified" men competing in women’s sports.

Here, Psychology Today confidently bulldozes through irrefutable biological realities in favor of ideological zealotry. The overwhelming physical advantages of male puberty — greater muscle mass, bone density, and cardiovascular capacity — are glaringly obvious to anyone willing to look. Yet these differences are blithely dismissed, replaced by a crusade against common sense that prioritizes feelings over fairness.

This is more than bad science; it’s a blatant disregard for women’s safety, equity, and hard-won opportunities in sports.

The pièce de résistance is a recent feature glorifying menopause as a “catalyst for psychospiritual development.” Forget the very real and well-documented symptoms — hot flashes, insomnia, bone loss, and debilitating mood swings. None of that matters when you can reframe this biological bombshell as some mystical gateway to enlightenment.

In this magical world, suffering isn’t something to be mitigated; it’s a spiritual calling, a chance to “evolve” as you lie awake at 3 a.m., drenched in sweat, wondering why life feels like a cruel joke.

One can only wonder what’s next in this circus of rebranding disorder as divine transformation. Perhaps kidney stones will become the “sacred pain” of self-discovery. Will migraines be hailed as “intense meditative opportunities”? Perhaps colon cancer will be spun as the ultimate “spiritual cleanse.” The sheer audacity of pretending that every form of human suffering is some sort of cosmic blessing is beyond absurd — it’s insulting.

Who cares?

Now, you might ask, “Who cares what a ridiculous magazine says?” But Psychology Today isn’t just any magazine. It’s the world’s most widely read psychology publication, shaping the views of psychologists who, in turn, influence legislative policies, educational curricula, and even court decisions. This isn’t just harmless, woke drivel; it’s a dangerous dereliction of intellectual responsibility.

Sadly, none of this should surprise us. Politics, as the saying goes, is downstream from culture, and our culture today is, quite frankly, unhinged. Moreover, science has been hijacked by political motives. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed this rot for all to see, with “experts” bending data to suit agendas and dissenters labeled heretics. The same unscientific philosophies underpin the trans movement, where ideology routinely trumps biological reality.

Psychology, once the pursuit of understanding human behavior through rigorous study, has become a parody of itself.What once aimed to help individuals navigate the complexities of life now offers little more than a curated buffet of half-baked theories dressed up as legitimate truth.

The field’s potential for redemption grows dimmer with each new foray into pseudoscience. Psychology Today’s reputation as an unimpeachable source of accessible and credible psychological insight now circles the drain, taking with it any hope for meaningful reform.

The magazine’s descent into irrelevance reflects a deeper crisis in modern science — one in which ideological conformity has replaced intellectual rigor. What remains is a hollow shell, propped up by institutions that prioritize virtue-signaling over genuine understanding. The damage now permeates our schools, our laws, and our collective psyche, leaving millions adrift in a sea of destructive lies.

How to find effective, no-nonsense therapy for men

If you told me even 10 years ago that I would be writing for a conservative publication like Align, I would have chuckled. Had you told me that I would be writing about issues of concern to men, about what men are and what they need, I would have guffawed.

Until about eight years ago, I was a typical liberal gay guy. Democrat, leftist, feminist. Wait — don’t close your browser tab!

If you had a good mother, you will likely pick good women. If you had a wicked mother, the women you pick will be disasters.

I understand the urge; people like me helped lay waste to American culture for a long time. But as Irving Kristol said of himself, I was mugged by reality over these last eight years. I came out on the other side as a conservative and a traditionalist.

For decades, our culture has been trying to turn men into women and women into men. Because of that, some of you may not be well-disposed to hear an argument in favor of psychotherapy for men.

Deliberate handicapping

But what we call “therapy” in 2024 is actively anti-therapeutic. Instead of challenging and helping patients become more whole and self-reliant, what’s called “therapy” today is closer to brainwashing and deliberate handicapping.

Instead of teaching clarity and self-reliance, too many practitioners foist leftist social justice ideology onto patients. At absolute best, most of this is merely an expensive hour with someone to complain to — someone who will respond by cooing over you and telling you you’re perfect as you are.

At worst, especially if you’re a man, you’ll be told it’s your “male privilege” making you miserable, and wouldn’t you be a better person if you were more feminine?

But there is real therapy that can help people who need it, and some genuinely do. I’d like to help give you the best chance of finding it if it would be helpful to you.

Mom or 'Mommie Dearest'?

Who needs therapy? People like me and maybe people like you. I was raised in a home headed by a mother with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders. If you are tempted to write these terms off as “psychobabble,” I ask you to take them seriously.

They are very real, and people with them are some of the most deranged and often abusive types you will ever come across. Though it is not a perfect analogy to my childhood, if you’ve read the book or seen the movie "Mommie Dearest," you grasp the gist of what my life was like as a child (minus the money and fame).

Those of us raised this way come out extremely damaged. We have trouble having normal emotions, we hate ourselves even if we don’t know it consciously, and we’re prone to making terrible life choices. I became an alcoholic in my teens and did not quit drinking until my mid-40s (I’m 50 now). Many have walked a similar road, and many have had it much worse.

If you are a man who had an abusive mother, the effects are profound. The mother is the most important figure in a child’s life; her care and affection cannot be replaced by a substitute.

When she is deranged or abusive, your entire view of yourself, of other men, of women, is distorted. It does not matter if you’re straight or gay — all men “marry” their mothers eventually. Gay men do it through intensely close platonic female friendships while straight men romance or marry a version of their mothers.

If you had a good mother, you will likely pick good women. If you had a wicked mother, the women you pick will be disasters.

Learning what 'normal' is

This is what genuine psychotherapy is for. Most addictions and patterns of self-destructive behavior are rooted in a lack of stable, sane childhood homes. We are all responsible for the choices we make in adulthood, and only we can steer our lives. But those of us from profoundly abusive or neglectful homes have to do extra work later in life to learn what “normal” is.

It is true that therapy is not the answer to everything, and what we call therapy today is, let’s say, “overprescribed.” But the fallout from that is that there are many people, including men, who really can benefit from proper psychotherapy who have been scared off from the concept because the whole field has gone femi-woke.

How do you find a “real” therapist? I can’t give you a formula that promises success. Pickings are slim. But I’ve been in real psychotherapy for six years with an old school, no-nonsense guy, and it’s been a genuine help. My appointments are also less frequent than they used to be; I’m not advocating being on the couch for decades.

While I am not a degreed mental health practitioner, I do offer consulting/coaching (“counseling,” if you prefer) to clients who have personality disordered people affecting their lives. I’m a well-read and knowledgeable layman with experience, and that’s what I offer to those who book time with me.

How to find a good therapist

One of the most common questions from my clients is how to find a good therapist and avoid woke practitioners. Here is what I suggest:

Go for the oldest therapist possible. They were in school before the woke collapse of the field. My therapist is 70.

Men, seek a male therapist, especially if you have “mother wounds.” Part of overcoming them is connecting to other sane, healthy men. Female therapists can be very good, but there is a risk to men with mother wounds of meshing with a female therapist in unhelpful ways.

Avoid any therapist who advertises or even mentions LGBTQ+. That is too often an indicator of a leftist ideologue. Besides, any truly competent therapist can help clients of any demographic category.

Treat your first session as an interview. Explicitly bring up any concerns in plain language. Example: “I do not believe in gender ideology, and I need to make sure we’re a good fit. What is your position on LBGTQ+?” If you don’t like the answer, move on.

Check out organizations run by concerned professionals who want to help clients find productive, non-ideological therapy. The Open Therapy Institute and Critical Therapy Antidote are good places to start.

Therapy is not a fix for everything. There’s a lot of wisdom in the notion that getting engaged in activities in the real world with other men can do wonders for a man with a broken spirit.

I just bought my first shotgun and had my first of many trips to the shooting range; this is my way of bringing some masculine balance into my life that has been missing. Besides, I live in the country, we have bears, and I’m not relying on cops to save my own hide.

Maybe balance for you, the man reading this, is giving real therapy a shot.

Why men need faith for mental health and meaningful lives

You probably didn’t hear that International Men’s Day was November 19. While arbitrary dates for these designations don’t signify much, there’s a stark contrast between the ho-hum response for men and the extravagant hullabaloo and pomp and circumstance around International Women’s Day, March 8.

For example, unlike International Women's Day, International Men's Day is not officially recognized by the United Nations. While men should wear it as a badge of honor from such a corrupt organization as the United Nations, this illustrates a telling, second-class treatment of men by global “elites.”

When addressing mental health, particularly for men, our mental health system often lacks connection to God’s healing power.

That men deserve support and acknowledgment for their sacrifices and vulnerabilities undermines the New World Order’s desire to feminize and divide our world into critical gender theory categories of masculine “oppressors” and feminine “oppressed.”

International Men’s Day was founded by Thomas Oaster, former director of the now-defunct Missouri Center for Men’s Studies at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. It’s partially a day to bring awareness to the abuse, violence, homelessness, and suicide men suffer. For example, a mere 8% of all workplace fatalities are women. Men are enormously more likely to put their physical bodies at occupational risk, composing an astonishing 92% of workplace deaths.

Unfortunately, America is generally in a mental health crisis, and men fatally suffer most. Men are four times more likely than women to kill themselves. Men make up 50% of the U.S. population but nearly 80% of suicides, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last year, more than 50,000 people committed suicide in America. This is nearly 17 times the number of people murdered in the 9/11 terrorist attack and the highest number ever of suicides recorded. Before our current onslaught, the year with the previous highest suicide rate was 1941, the ashes of the Great Depression. Gallup reported in 2023 that clinical depression in lifetime and current depression both hit new highs.

Jeff Myers of Summit Ministries recently noted that every 10 years, the World Happiness Report reports levels of happiness in 143 nations by asking people to rate their happiness on a scale of 1 to 10. “The report reveals that Israeli young people — even with all their nation’s troubles — are the second-happiest people group in the world (slightly behind Lithuania),” Myers wrote. “American young people, on the other hand, are in 62nd place.”

America’s happiness ranking dropped precipitously in recent years, driven by a drop in purpose and meaning, especially among self-identified liberals and progressives. Yet men and women attending weekly religious services are significantly less likely to die "deaths of despair" — suicide, drug overdose, or alcohol poisoning — according to research from Harvard University’s School of Public Health.

Similarly, the National Bureau of Economic Research, a farm team for chairs of White House Council of Economic Advisers from left and right, reported last year that states reporting declining religious participation also saw increasing deaths of despair, and vice versa.

Psychiatric Times ran a literature review examining hundreds of studies and reported overwhelmingly less depression, suicide, and substance abuse among people of faith.

It’s no wonder then that progressives are more likely to be depressed, as they are also far more likely to be atheist. Pew Research found that 69% of atheists identify as Democrats or Democrat-leaning, while just 15% identify as Republicans and 17% as independents.

When it comes to gender, Pew also found men are far more likely to deny the existence of God, regardless of political party, though Republican atheists were slightly more likely to be male (70% male, 30% female) than Democrat atheists (65% male, 35% female).

Atheism is also correlated with psychopathy, as researchers from Case Western Reserve University and Babson College found, writing, “the more empathetic person was more likely religious. This also fits with a previous finding that women tend to be more religious or spiritual than men, which can now be explained by their stronger tendency towards empathy.”

When addressing mental health, particularly for men, our mental health system often lacks connection to God’s healing power. Studies reveal a significant disconnect between the religious beliefs of the general population and those in mental health professions. The journal Sociology of Religion found that psychologists are the least religious among professors, with 61% identifying as either atheist (50%) or agnostic (11%). Similarly, Harvard magazine reported that psychologists, along with biologists, are the least likely among professors to believe in God.

In contrast, Gallup found that 81% of Americans believe in God. Research by Harvard Medical School’s David Rosmarin, founder of the Center for Anxiety, highlights this gap. Rosmarin discovered that nearly 76% of patients sought spiritually integrated psychotherapy. However, his team also found that 36% of therapists expressed discomfort addressing spirituality and religion with clients, 19% rarely or never inquired about these topics, and 71% reported “little to no clinical training in this area.”

No matter their political stripe, based on mounds of scientific evidence (trust the science, right?), men are far less likely to engage in the lifesaving faith communities that are strongly tied with significantly less depression, substance abuse, and suicide.

Mental health often deteriorates around the holidays as feelings of loneliness compound. Let’s stand for our men and connect them with the healing power of God to save life and provide joy and peace.

How Feminism Makes Everyone Transgender And What To Do About It

Contrary to propaganda messaging, our society is neither 'overfeminized' nor 'pro-woman.' It is deeply anti-woman.

‘Joy’ Rhetoric Is An Orwellian Attempt To Hide Democrats’ Hatred

The Democrat machine has not yet come out openly to declare that ‘hate is love,’ but they might as well. Because getting people to hate one another is their goal.

Gen Z: Reject coddling and discover your true potential

We have been raising spoiled, stunted children in the West for at least two generations. Millennials had maturity problems previously unseen in young adults. Gen Z is worse.

When I criticize the deficiencies of the younger generations, as I will here, it is not out of pride. I do not want to “gotcha” younger people. My ego does not grow two sizes larger by “cutting down” younger people.

Generation Z today is objectively the least competent across all domains of life of any generation we’ve ever seen. This is not their fault, but only they can recognize this and correct it.

Though Gen Z is hostile to older people like me, and though they don’t believe this, some of us older people genuinely care about them. I am one. I want to help younger people raise themselves to a higher level, as caring adults did for me when I was young and lost.

Young people today have, through no fault of their own, a distorted and false view of themselves. They believe they have knowledge they do not have. They believe they have wisdom when what they have is simply a generational prejudice. Their parents and teachers have praised them for substandard work and behavior their whole lives; why wouldn’t they think they know better than some stupid 50-year-old?

'You're a bad man! You're a very bad man!'

The modern (and never before seen in living memory) inversion of values permeates every level of culture. Here are some of those inversions. They are not only inversions of values, they are inversions of objective reality:

Young people know more than older people.
Young people have a more finely tuned moral compass and know what society should do better than real adults.
Young people are much more compassionate than older adults.
Young people have the social and moral right to scoff at, abuse, and “correct” older people who do not flatter the young population’s view of itself.

These are problems, not progress. And they are not minor problems; they are potentially civilization-ending problems. It is not a coincidence that we saw the cultural elevation of the young over the old with the Hitler Youth and during Mao’s cultural revolution. This inversion alerts us that we are in a Bolshevik mode.

Screenshot from "It's a Good Life" (1961-CBS)

When I was a boy, other kids bored me. I wanted to be part of the adult conversation (even when it wasn’t my place). As soon as I could learn a new skill, I wanted to learn it. Cooking, mending, basic car maintenance, driving a stick (even old school non-synchro-meshed transmissions that required double-clutching-fun!).

When I learned these skills, I felt genuine and earned pride. I felt competent and confident. In my generation, this was a normal attitude for children. It was encouraged by adults, as it should be.

Ego-fluffing adults

That’s all gone. Generation Z today is objectively the least competent across all domains of life of any generation we’ve ever seen. This is not their fault, but only they can recognize this and correct it. But not many will because they have been taught that being told they are incompetent or rude or ignorant or simply "not perfect" is an assault. They experience correction and instruction as acts of aggression against them. They have almost no genuine ego-strength.

The other day, I saw an ad for Uber Teens. That’s right. A special, teen-only account for Uber. Step back and look at that from five feet away: There is actually a market for a “teen’s taxicab service.” That’s remarkable — and worrying.

Why does that market exist? Because the coddled and stunted Generation Z doesn’t want to get a driver’s license. That, too, is astonishing. Have you tried offering a young person a lesson in driving a manual transmission vehicle? I have. The reaction has been swiftly negative. Bemusement tinged with fear and a bit of disgust. “I COULD NEVER do that; it’s so HARD.”

The consequences of the false ego-fluffing adults have performed on this generation show up in their writing, too. The quality of writing from many younger people is far below the standard of what was, until recently, considered normal writing competence that any person of average intelligence could achieve.

The way they write reflects negative changes in our cultural psychology. Young writers rely on the passive voice. They avoid direct statements. They substitute emotion words for thought words. For example, “Many voters feel like the President maybe is not in the best health.” They write in a flaccid, timid tone. What style they try to deploy usually ends up introducing redundant emotional intensifiers and superlatives.

Instead of writing clearly and confidently, drawing on a base of subject-matter knowledge, many young people try to “sound fancy.” For example, compare these two sentences:

I would write: “She gave him a classic Corvette for his 65th birthday.”

Gen Z writes: “She gifted him a classic Corvette.”

Affected. Twee. Flowery. Objectively bad writing. Florid circumlocutions cannot disguise grammatical and syntactical incompetence.

It’s just plain bad prose.

And no one ever told them that. Correcting them is difficult for two reasons:

They do not recognize the deficiencies in their writing because they were taught by incompetent adults.
They do not have the emotional ego-strength to hear constructive criticism without reacting with wounded feelings. They experience correction as an assault.

Are you a Generation Z reader? If you are, and you’re still with me, I have two anecdotes that may help you see what I mean.

'Never turn a paper like this in again.'

I went to Sarah Lawrence College. This was the liberalest of the liberal arts schools. I was trained to write in the style of Foucauldian Continental philosophers. In other words, I was trained to write badly.

But I did have professors and advisors who cared about me and wanted to see me do my best. In my freshman year, I turned in a paper to my advisor that I had just “phoned in.” Mary, my don, returned it to me covered in red pen:

”Josh — never turn a paper like this in again. I know what you’re capable of and I will not tolerate it.”

It was humiliating, and it was a gift. I never turned in substandard work again.

A few years later, I got a job at a daily paper in a small city, having “graduated” from the small-town weekly paper I started at. The first few months were ego-bruising. Bob, my editor, returned my copy to me frequently in actual, physical red pen (and real-world paper; gross and scary, right?).

My writing was flowery, full of adjectives, and in the wrong tone for news coverage. Bob kept after me, instructing me on the “inverted pyramid” structure of news writing while pruning my excess adjectives.

A few months in, he said to me, “Josh, you oversold yourself during your interview. You weren’t that good. But you’re a much better writer now.”

And the next year, I won first place in the statewide press association awards for investigative consumer reporting. Bob’s discipline was a gift to me, not a punishment.

If there was one thing I could communicate to young people and have them really accept and take it on board, it would be this: You are capable of so much more than you believe. You can learn to drive that truck, to write that article, to balance that household budget, and to cook that food for yourself.

But to get there, you have to take honest stock of where you are now. The adults in your life have, sadly, given you a false picture of your skill level. Said with no snark, and no intent to insult or to hurt you: You are objectively far less competent than adults your age from prior generations.

That is not your fault. You are not unworthy. It does not mean that I, or other older adults “hate” you.

These older adults want to help you become the full, mature, competent and poised adults that you can be. Will you let us?

Josh Slocum is the former head of a non-profit advocacy group for funeral services consumers. He is the host and creator (along with producer Kevin Hurley) of the "Disaffected" podcast. He also offers consulting and coaching for those dealing with narcissism and family issues. This article originally appeared in the Disaffected Newsletter.