Therapist-in-training exposes nauseating secrets from the world of counselor education



Naomi Epps Best is a married Christian mother and graduate student in marriage and family therapy at Santa Clara University. Like anyone who enters the counseling profession, she wants to help people thrive.

Sadly, in today’s world, helping people thrive is often synonymous with affirming their delusions. On a recent episode of “Relatable,” Naomi sat down with Allie Beth Stuckey to share what future therapists are being taught about gender identity and care for minors.

  

“We were taught that if a child comes to us and they are experiencing extreme gender-related distress,” it is our “ethical obligation ... to affirm them in their belief and to not act as a gatekeeper for their medical treatment,” says Naomi. “That is what I am taught at [Santa Clara University], and that is what is being propagated down from the psychological governing bodies in this country.”

“I've talked to so many de-transitioners,” says Allie, “and every single one says that there was a therapist who didn't ask questions that checked off the boxes” and “uncritically affirm[ed]” their gender of choice. And even if the child also suffers from anorexia, bipolar disorder, or autism, the therapist is obligated to “ignore all of that, and say, ‘Yes, here is your letter of recommendation to go on puberty blockers, cross- sex hormones, [or] get your breasts cut off.”’

“Yes, exactly,” says Naomi. “[That methodology] is by design in this profession, and there are great therapists out there, who will ask deeper questions and will walk with a child who has gender dysphoria and provide them good care, but those individuals are going against the ethical standards and guidelines in our profession, and they're taking a risk by doing that.”

Earlier this month, Naomi published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal criticizing Santa Clara University’s Marriage and Family Therapy program, particularly its required human sexuality course. The article, titled “Santa Clara University’s Crazy Idea of Human Sexuality,” exposed explicit and coercive practices like assigning sadomasochistic erotica and mandatory sexual autobiographies, alongside ideological bias, unprofessional conduct, and racial stereotyping. Best argued these elements, coupled with denied accommodations, ethical violations, and retaliations against her, prioritize political agendas over neutral clinical training.

Just days after the article’s publication, Naomi was fired from her therapy internship. But before that, she was “summoned to a 15-on-one struggle meeting,” where her fellow “therapists-in-training” launched “character attacks” at her.

“These people called me unsafe. They called me a danger to the profession,” she tells Allie.

To hear more of Naomi’s wild story about what’s going on in the world of therapy education in our country, watch the episode above.

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To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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Seeking lasting Valentine’s romance? Try praying together



This Valentine’s Day, here’s something to consider about romance: Cupid’s arrow lasts far longer if it’s coated in faith and daily prayer.

While this might sound less thrilling or passionate than moonlit smooches or intimate fireplace cottage getaways, Harvard School of Public Health found a 50% reduction in divorce for those couples regularly attending religious services.

Given the hostile takeover of our counseling industry by secular 'experts,' it’s worth asking: Does botched, secular marriage counseling drive couples apart?

The American Journal of Family Therapy reported couples’ prayer reduces martial conflict, and several other studies confirm prayer bonds couples tightly.

This makes intuitive sense. Prayer is an emotionally intimate act. It’s pouring out the vulnerabilities of our souls, expressing our deepest gratitude and needs. While there are no Christian theological grounds for belief in one true soulmate, there’s strong evidence that engaging in prayer with a spouse who deeply cares for your soul can be a true soulmate.

Valentine’s Day has been hijacked into a nearly $28 billion affair, with superficial consumerism trumping deeper connection. Too often, we spend more time wining and dining — nothing wrong with those of course, within reason — than cultivating the substantive soul ties that last beyond chocolate boxes, champagne toasts, and rose petals.

It is a social travesty that every marriage counseling session does not recommend daily prayer. It could save shattering heartache, broken families, and childhood suffering, not to mention costly legal bills (estimated to average $30,000 for lawyering up in a divorce, per the Marriage Foundation).

The societal cost of broken families is enormous, especially when parents become single, further straining our bloated $1.6 trillion welfare social safety net. Single parenthood is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, factors linked to welfare use.

But sadly, our counseling industry is devoid of spiritual understanding and has been taken over by secularists who deny God’s healing power. For example, Sociology of Religion reported that psychologists are the least religious of professors, with 61% reporting themselves atheist (50%) or agnostic (11%). This is nearly the exact opposite of what people actually believe. Gallup found that 81% of Americans believe in God. Thus, we’re being fed “solutions” to deep, soul-filled problems by people who quite often don’t even believe in souls.

This negatively impacts marriages. American divorces skyrocketed as our country secularized.

Scholars Brad Wilcox from the University of Virginia, Amy Burdette from Florida State, and Christopher Ellison from University of Texas-San Antonio also note in the Journal of Marriage and Family that couples who attend church together “are significantly less likely than others to use drugs, to have conflicts over sexual infidelity, or to experience domestic violence.” They also have better parent-child relationships.

Psychiatric Times published a literature review of hundreds of studies, which found significantly less depression and substance abuse among religious people. Both women and men 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 led by professor Tyler VanderWeele, a devout Catholic whom the left tried to cancel for sharing his views on traditional marriage.

Staying married significantly shields our mental health. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, along with numerous other places, notes that men and women who are divorced are significantly more likely to die by suicide than married people. The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Healthreported that divorced and separated men were nearly 2.4 times more likely to kill themselves than their married counterparts.

The Good Book had it right: “What God has joined together, let no one separate.” Matthew 19:6 is Jesus commanding Christians in a passage about marriage. Given the hostile takeover of our counseling industry by secular “experts” who are clueless about integrating God into their treatments, it’s worth asking: Does botched, secular marriage counseling drive couples apart?

Couples who pray together stay together. This Valentine’s Day, take that candlelight dinner; buy those earrings or tech gadget for your spouse. But in the name of saving romance, marriages, and lives, it’s time to return God to the center of our romantic relationships. He’s far wiser and more loving than anything we can contrive.

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.

Trans kids will be STERILE, 'gold mine of opportunity' for big pharma and reproductive technologies



Miriam Grossman, M.D., is a psychiatrist who has taken a stand against what she describes as the “religion” of gender ideology. Grossman saw a massive increase in young patients who claimed to have gender dysphoria after COVID lockdowns, when kids were isolated online.

“There is no medical or scientific basis for the idea that you can be one sex in your mind and that be at odds with your physical reality of your body,” Grossman tells Glenn Beck.

“Everything you just said, I just believe. But you’re one of the only doctors left on the hill of sanity,” Glenn says. “What happened?”

Grossman notes that parents and therapists have started to “affirm the new identity, celebrate the new identity, and put the child in the driver's seat.”

“It’s what many, many therapists do these days, and it is what almost all of our mainstream medical and mental health associations are telling us to do,” Grossman says, using the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics as examples of organizations she no longer trusts despite being trained to.

“Kids are indoctrinated with this religion as if they are established facts,” she explains. “They are flooded with this from every angle as they go through the day, and they’re led to believe that these are undisputed facts, and nothing could be further from the truth.”

Not only have mainstream medical and mental health associations done a one-eighty on their previous science-backed beliefs — but they’re ignoring the clear life-altering consequences that come with such a decision.

“They take puberty blockers, they then take cross-sex hormones, testosterone and estrogen and other hormones, and then many of them get surgeries, which are extremely expensive,” Grossman says. “Now, once a young person goes on puberty blockers, almost all of them will continue on to cross-sex hormones, which means they will be a consumer of pharmaceuticals for the rest of their life.”

“Could it be that simple, that it’s money, that it’s Big Pharma that’s really pushing this?” Glenn asks Grossman.

“There’s no question that this is extremely lucrative,” she says. “You have to also consider that we are creating a generation of young people who are sterile.”

If they end up wanting to have biological kids, their only options will be IVF or surrogacy.

“That’s a whole other gold mine of opportunity for reproductive technologies,” Grossman adds.


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