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Joe Rogan Experience #2109 - Abigail Shrier

Abigail Shrier is an independent journalist and author. Her latest book is "Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up." www.abigailshrier.comwww.thetruthfairy.info

Abigail ShrierguestJoe Roganhost
Jun 27, 20242h 0mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:40

    Return to JRE amid backlash: why open discussion matters

    1. NA

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

    2. AS

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

    3. NA

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music)

    4. JR

      Hello.

    5. AS

      Hello.

    6. JR

      Abigail, good to see you again.

    7. AS

      It's great to see you.

    8. JR

      Um, what was, uh, what was it like the last time you did the show?

    9. NA

      (laughs)

    10. AS

      (laughs)

    11. JR

      (laughs)

    12. AS

      Well, they tried to kick it off Spotify. (laughs)

    13. JR

      Yeah, it was a very small, noisy group of people, by the way.

    14. AS

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      It wasn't the- the head people.

    16. AS

      Right.

    17. JR

      Th- they tried to make it seem like there was this big movement to get it kicked off Spotify, but when you examine what you were saying, and, you know, many more people are saying what you were saying, this was like, what year was this when you were on?

    18. AS

      2020.

    19. JR

      2020?

    20. AS

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      Um, the, it had sort of just started boiling.

    22. AS

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      You know? And now, four years later, it's- th- there's a lot of people pushing back now.

    24. AS

      That's right. And I th- honestly, I thought you were gonna never have me on your show again. (laughs)

    25. JR

      Why?

    26. AS

      Because, you know, it was very, I mean, they had 10 meetings with the employees demanding that it be removed. I thought, "Joe's gonna be so mad at me." (laughs)

    27. JR

      No. No, they're wrong. They're wrong. They're wrong. They're w- every time someone wants to stop discussions, they're wrong.

    28. AS

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      They're wrong, especially when you wanna try to stop discussions about a very serious and permanent thing that people are advocating to do to children that is also very profitable.

    30. AS

      Yeah.

  2. 2:40 – 3:51

    Free speech, platform power, and the post-Twitter shift

    1. JR

      And the reason why they wanna try to do it is because they know that there's too many people that agree with it and that these people have been silenced before, so they'd like to bully them into silence. They like to scare them into silence. They like to get them canceled. And, you know, before Elon purchased Twitter, you used to be able to do that much more effectively. You know-

    2. AS

      Y- what? The silencing?

    3. JR

      Yeah, the silencing-

    4. AS

      Yeah. That's right.

    5. JR

      ... was so easy. If you said-

    6. AS

      That's right.

    7. JR

      ... I mean, look, Megan Murphy was kicked off of Twitter for years-

    8. AS

      That's right.

    9. JR

      ... just for saying a man is never a woman.

    10. AS

      That's right. And it, look, I mean, there's no question, I think, that Elon taking over Twitter broke open the monopoly on a lot of conversations.

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. AS

      I- I do think that had that effect, and it's really important. I mean, look, if their position, if the gender activists' position was a good one, they wouldn't have to shut everyone up, right?

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. AS

      They wouldn't have to object. I mean, they took my book off Target. They threw a fit, and Target removed the book, and they did it because even though they have hundreds of trans celebratory books, hundreds of celebra- books celebrating gender transition for teenagers, even one that was critical o- of it, that was too much for them, because they knew it would break their monopoly on the narrative.

  3. 3:51 – 5:38

    Detransitioners and the moral panic around regret

    1. JR

      Well, the- the really scary thing is when you see these detransitioners get attacked.

    2. AS

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      That's- that's terrifying. That's terrifying, because that's just so, it's so cruel, it, the- the- the complete lack of compassion for someone that's done, you know, as the title of your book, irreversible damage to- to their life, forever.

    4. AS

      Exactly.

    5. JR

      They'll never have children again. They'll never have breasts again, and this, it, the fact that this is just a- a part of this bizarre cult that a giant swath of our population is consumed by right now.

    6. AS

      That's right, and they didn't, they didn't let detransitioners be part of the story.

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. AS

      That there was a growing number of these women who were regretting their transition, and they had some- and they were brave enough to speak up, but, and that took real courage-

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. AS

      ... because they're talking about their own experience, their own damage to their own bodies.

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. AS

      I mean, they were the most courageous of all, and, uh, and they were, th- they were treated horribly by the activists.

    13. JR

      Yeah, it's so dark. Like, you don't want to think that people can make mistakes. Even if you think that people should be allowed to transition when they're young, you don't think that some people are gonna do it and regret it? That's insane.

    14. AS

      Right.

    15. JR

      You think that everybody who goes through surgery to remove parts of their body because they feel like they're in the wrong gender, you think all those people are gonna be happy? That's insanity.

    16. AS

      Yeah, I mean, it- it's, you know, like a religion in the sense of a funda- the fundamentalism of belief against all evidence to the contrary. I mean, these people believed this on faith. It was a creed, and there was no disabusing them of this, even when there was growing evidence of thousands of young women regretting it.

  4. 5:38 – 7:35

    Mainstream media pivot and the looming legal battlefield

    1. JR

      Well, finally now, the New York Times is on board though-

    2. AS

      (laughs)

    3. JR

      ... which is really interesting.

    4. AS

      It is, isn't it?

    5. JR

      And I saw, I saw someone commenting on Twitter, and I think they're probably correct, and they said, "This is because the trial lawyers are involved now."And I think they're correct. I think this is why the New York Times has kinda shifted sides, because I think they realize the lawsuits are coming, and once a few of them are successful, and they will be, it's going to get crazy.

    6. AS

      Well, I- I think that, that is a part of it, um, but I don't think the lawsuits are gonna solve it as easily as they did, say, the repressed memory scandal, uh, of prior eras and, you know, um, the multiple dis- you know, personality disorder, you know, all these people who thought they had repressed memory of, of various kinds of harm, uh, and, uh, were imagining, you know, uh, you know, childhood molestation that didn't happen and put, you know, that in fact-

    7. JR

      Are you talking about, like, the- the satanic stuff from the '80s?

    8. AS

      Yeah, from the '80s.

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. AS

      That whole satan- I think that got reversed through lawsuits in part because they weren't following clear medical pr- uh, you know, clear protocols of their profession. The problem with the tr- the gender, going after the gender regime through the courts, and I'm in favor of it, don't get me wrong, but the problem is that the- the gender therapists, the- the- the therapists, the doctors were all following protocol-

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. AS

      ... when they transitioned a kid, um, to, you know, and cut up their bodies in various ways, you know, incapacitated them in various ways. They were actually following affirmative care, which is the official protocol. So, I just-

    13. JR

      Which is crazy.

    14. AS

      It's crazy. It's crazy.

    15. JR

      It's crazy. It's so crazy that there's so many things that we don't allow children to do because we know that children can't really make lifelong decisions at the age of 11 and 12 and 13, but yet we'll let them in this case.

    16. AS

      That's right.

    17. JR

      (sighs) It's so nuts.

  5. 7:35 – 8:04

    Clinics, incentives, and medical professionals who ‘should have known better’

    1. AS

      Yeah, I- I, you know, when I look back on it, you know, there are a few, I sort of had a few, there were a few sort of lessons o- of it. But one of the things that really stood out was that, um, almost in every case, there were medical professionals who should have known better, and very often therapists who should have known better, encouraging the- a young girl who was a little anxious or had some anxiety, had some depression, encouraging her down this road as the solution.

  6. 8:04 – 11:44

    Hormones and surgery: short-term relief, permanent consequences

    1. JR

      Yeah. Well, it's also not recognizing what we know about what happens to people when they give them testosterone.

    2. AS

      Right.

    3. JR

      So, testosterone alleviates anxiety. Testosterone creates a s- a feeling of euphoria.

    4. AS

      Right.

    5. JR

      It does a lot, especially when you give it to someone in doses that their body would never normally have.

    6. AS

      That's right. That's right. And so, what, the girls would go on it, and they would feel great-

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. AS

      ... and they would become evangelists for testosterone. They would tell all their friends, "You gotta do this. I feel great. All my anxiety is gone." Of course, now they may have a permanent five o'clock shadow.

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. AS

      Um, you know-

    11. JR

      Change in their voice, everything.

    12. AS

      Change in their voice.

    13. JR

      And when they detransition, that never goes away.

    14. AS

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      Yeah, it's very dark. It's very dark, and I would've never imagined this. I would've never imagined that... Before COVID, I had a completely different opinion of the medical establishment. My opinion of the medical establishment is that they were there to help people.

    16. AS

      That's right.

    17. JR

      That's it.

    18. AS

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      I never questioned it. I questioned the motives of some of the pharmaceutical drug companies that were trying to sell drugs. But I felt like the medical establishment always figured that out eventually, and then they- they banned those drugs, the ones that were harmful. But that's not real. That's not really what happens. It's a money game. The whole thing is a money and influence game, and it's run by very powerful people. And no one wants to think that those same factors are at play when it comes to gender transition. But, you know, I've shown people the map of gender transition clinics in 2007-

    20. AS

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      ... versus gender transition clinics in 2023.

    22. AS

      Right.

    23. JR

      And it's fucking insane.

    24. AS

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      It's insane.

    26. AS

      Yeah. Yeah, hundreds and hundreds of new gender clinics all across the country. Um, you know, it- it, the industry expanded so rapidly with very little oversight. And it was just, how fast could we get these drugs to these kids?

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. AS

      Um, so yeah, I mean, I agree with you. There wasn't enough oversight, but there also weren't enough good people speaking up.

    29. JR

      Yeah.

    30. AS

      A lot of the best doctors who are like, "I'm- I didn't enter the medical profession to do this," they- they went silent or they referred to other. They said, "Why don't you, you know, let me refer you to a specialist." Well, actually, the gender surgeons often, you know, weren't m- weren't even, you know, adequate to the task 'cause it's very, very complicated surgery, um, you know, involving tr- you know, transferring peripheral nerves and whatnot. Um, so it's not easy surgery, depending on which surgery you're talking about. Very often, they weren't even the most qualified surgeons doing the surgery. So you had a lot of, uh, you know, surgeries that didn't go quite right.

  7. 11:44 – 13:59

    Writing 'Irreversible Damage': censorship, access, and breaking the suicide narrative

    1. JR

      So, again, what was it like for you? Did you expec- when you wrote that book, did you expect the kind of blowback that you experienced? Like, what did you expect when you wrote the book? O- o- obviously, you felt the need to express this, and you felt the need to share this information because...... you, you recognize that there's, like, this contagion, this social contagion that seems to be happening. It's a big part of what's going on, and a lot of these kids are very easily influenced. A lot of them are on the spectrum, and they're being led down this road. So you write this book. What did you expect was gonna be the reaction to it?

    2. AS

      Well, most books get very little attention at all. So most books, right ... You know, I, I certainly didn't expect the, you know, massive, uh, reaction that I got. I mean, the, the public campaign to ban me from every possible outlet was, was so hyper-charged, and to some extent, it was successful. I mean, it was p- ... Uh, they kept the book on Amazon. It was deleted from Target. You can't find it in a, uh, a public library in America, no matter how many people tried to donate it to their libraries. So, to some extent, it was successful, but, uh, uh, y- you know, the campaign to, to, to stifle the book, but because I made it onto places like your podcast, because I made it into Amazon, um, people got it. Uh, parents got it, and for the first time, I think, parents had another source of information besides the activists' narrative of, "Oh, you know, you're, you're either gonna have a live daught- you know, a live son or a dead daughter," this, this lie that, "Your child is gonna kill themselves if, if you don't do exactly what I say and let them transition now." This lie was the prevailing narrative, and I think, you know, I was able to break through, and, uh, I think that's what made people so angry.

    3. JR

      That lie falls apart on scrutiny when you look at the suicide rates of people that are trans.

    4. AS

      Right. Right. There's actually a new study out of Finland showing that, uh, th- a, a really good long-term study, you know, I think it came out maybe just this week, showing that, um, the rates, when you control for other mental health issues, the rates of suicide among those with gender dysphoria, the, you know, uh, b- you know, uh, discomfort with the biological sex, the r- the rates of suicide are no higher than for the general population.

  8. 13:59 – 17:35

    Pivot to new book: 'Bad Therapy' and therapy’s unintended side effects

    1. JR

      That's crazy. Um, your new book, Bad Therapy: Why Kids Aren't Growing Up.

    2. AS

      Yes.

    3. JR

      What's wrong with therapy? What are they doing wrong?

    4. AS

      You know, they're, they're giving it to kids who aren't sick, who aren't actually struggling with mental illness or, or a disorder. They're giving it to everybody. So what they're doing is they're making existing problems worse, and they're introducing new problems, because therapy has side effects. Just like any intervention that has the power to help, it also has the power to harm.

    5. JR

      In what way?

    6. AS

      Well, some of ... There's a whole body of research on, on some of the side effects of therapy, and they include things like alienation from spouse, alienation from parents, uh, worsening of depression, worsening of anxiety, um, feeling of incapacity, feeling like you can't do things without consulting your therapist. Um, all those are well-known iatrogenic effects. Feeling, uh, once you have a mental diagnosis, the labeling, feeling limited by that label. "Oh, oh, I have anxiety. I can't."

    7. JR

      Mmm.

    8. AS

      Um, so all those things are well-known what they call iatrogenic effects, meaning when- whenever a medical procedure actually introduces harm, that's i- an iatrogenic effect. And we know that, of course, you know, drugs and surgeries always come with, you know, even the life-saving ones can come with, um, some harm. And what people might not know is that therapy comes with these risks as well.

    9. JR

      So is, is this your opinion on therapy in general? Do you think there's a place for therapy?

    10. AS

      Absolutely. But I, I guess the big picture th- you know, theme here is that therapy with kids and teens is totally different for therapy with an adult, right? An adult sits down ... First of all, an adult makes the decision on their own. "You know, I really wanna worked- work on this. I'm gonna go to a therapist." And you get the patient buy-in, and they're ready to do the hard work of therapy. But a child or teenager is usually strong-armed into therapy, so they don't wanna be there f- in the first place. But more importantly, you know, they can't say as easily to a therapist, um, "Listen, I, I don't really think th- it ... I, I think he gave you the wrong impression. I, I don't think I would call my mom emotionally abusive." Or it's much harder for them to say, "Listen, um, I don't ... I, I know I was bullied in middle school, but I don't think I have PTSD." It's harder for a kid to say that 'cause they don't have the life experience, uh, behind them to know that, and, and they don't know if they're getting better as easily. An adult can say, "You know, I've been seeing this therapist for three years. You know, my depression is as bad as it ever was. It's just not working." And move on, maybe find a different therapist. It's much harder for a teenager to know that.

    11. JR

      Yeah, I have never been in therapy, although a lot of people told me to ... I should.

    12. AS

      (laughs)

    13. NA

      (laughs)

    14. JR

      Um, but they all are in therapy, and it doesn't seem to be helping. But the, the people that I know that are in therapy, the ones that are in therapy regularly are the most fucked up. And I don't see improvement. I don't ... I mean, maybe it's just a, a biased sampling of the people that I know that are doing it, but it's ... The people that ... Uh, and it- it's not all of them, but the ones that, uh, I find problematic are very self-indulgent. And there's something about going to a therapist and talking about yourself constantly and your problems constantly that sort of reinforces this sel- self-indulgence.

    15. AS

      And that's what can lead depression to get worse, sadness to get worse. As you sit and focus on your pain, it ... If you're not careful, especially with teens and kids, it can make the pain, the worry, the, the feeling of being harmed worse, and I think that's what we're seeing.

  9. 17:35 – 21:25

    When therapy helps vs. harms: CBT, exercise, and the ‘Becca’ example

    1. JR

      But what about the good therapists?

    2. AS

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      Aren't there good therapists that can give you tools to sort of change your patterns of thinking and behavior and move in a positive way?

    4. AS

      So if you're struggling with a condition of some sort, a phobia, anorexia, um, OCD, you know, any number of problems that you want to deal with, therapy can be great. Cognitive behavioral therapy, especially, can be great. But if you go ... If you're a teen or kid who shows up bummed out-... or ner- you know, just generally kind of anxious, um, to a therapist, you have a good shot of having that problem made worse.

    5. JR

      And wh- but why is that? What is it about going to therapy with that problem that's gonna make it worse?

    6. AS

      Because you're gonna sit and talk about your worries regularly. They're not gonna say, "You know that exercise is amazing for depression?" Study after study. In fact, there have been recent studies showing it's better than antidepressants for a lot of, you know-

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. AS

      ... um, you know-

    9. JR

      1.25%.

    10. AS

      I mean, it's, uh, amazing, right? Like-

    11. JR

      Oh, excuse me, one and a quarter, like, one times better.

    12. AS

      Right.

    13. JR

      One, you know.

    14. AS

      Dancing is apparently amazing for, you know, n- low mood. Now, I'm not talking about severe major depressive disorder, okay? When you have severe chronic depression, you may need to treat it with medication or, or therapy. But for l- you know, low mood, you know, sort of mild m- to moderate depression, exercise turns out to be better, and it doesn't have those side effects.

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. AS

      But let me give you an example of a, a teenager I talked to. So I talked to this girl, Becca, uh, is what I call her in the book. But, um, she was a high school senior, and she had been in therapy since age six, okay, when her parents divorced. She didn't have any, um, diagnosed mental disorder of any kind. But she had regularly been in therapy 'cause her parents divorced and they said, "You gotta go to therapy." So I asked her as a high school senior, "So what are you working on with your therapist now?" And she said to me, "My therapist is getting me ready to make friends in college. She's helping me."

    17. JR

      Oh. Oh, boy.

    18. AS

      "So we're rehearsing, we're going through my past experiences and we're talking about how to get me ready to make friends in college."

    19. JR

      (laughs) That gives me anxiety just thinking about it.

    20. AS

      Right.

    21. JR

      "Someone coaching me to go make friends," is like, what?

    22. AS

      Right. Do you see, this generation feels that it can't do-

    23. JR

      Mm.

    24. AS

      ... because they've gotten so much oversight and so much needless mental health intervention that they're questioning themselves all the time. They're in their heads all the time.

    25. JR

      And wha- what motivated you to write this book? Like, uh, do you have personal experiences with people that are going through this?

    26. AS

      Well, you know, two things. Like, one is I'm raising three kids in this generation, so I wanted to know, like, why was the generation that got the most mental health intervention, the most therapy, the most psych meds, the most interventions in schools, the most therapeutic parenting, why were they in the most distress? And why were they so afraid to grow up? And we shouldn't see that. They should be the picture of wellness. Nobody worried about anybody's mental health more than we worried about their mental health. And yet they're the picture of despair. So I, I really wanted to know, like, what was going on with them. And also, of course, I'd written Irreversible Damage, and I knew from that, you know, experience that very often when a young woman would tell a story about when her life went desperately off track, it was with a therapist. And here's the thing, it wasn't necessarily a gender therapist. Most often, it was just your vanilla psychodynamic therapist who was there to talk to an anxious or depre- a little bummed out teen, you know, a mildly depressed teen about their bad feelings. And lo and behold, during the course of gen- you know, regular psychodynamic therapy, they would say, "And what are your feelings on gender?"

    27. JR

      Mm.

    28. AS

      And with the therapist, they would go down that route.

  10. 21:25 – 26:51

    Beyond phones: long-term decline, anxious parenting, and loss of independence

    1. JR

      (exhales deeply) Wow. Um, there's a lot of other factors too, right, that's contributing to kids' anxiety today, and a big one has to be social media.

    2. AS

      Absolutely. Absolutely. Social media is a huge part of the story. There's no question. You know, I wrote about it in the first book. And, you know, Jonathan Haidt, Jean Twenge, they've been talking about it for eight years now, and they've brought rigor and important research to show that that has ... You know, extracting kids from their social world is bad.

    3. JR

      Yeah.

    4. AS

      And getting them, you know, f- making them, you know, getting the dop- dopamine hi- dopamine hit and the, you know, uh, you know, the, the anxious r- you know, worry about, "Who's gonna write me back and when?" And then getting the dopamine hit when they get that response, and that whole cycle, there's no question that plays on our natural sort of pe- you know, propensities for addiction, um, and, and makes kids more anxious. Um, but I th- I think it's part of what we're seeing. I don't think it's the whole story. Um, and the re- the reason I don't think it's the whole story is a few things. First of all, childhood mental health has been, and adolescent mental health has been in precipitous decline in this country since the 1950s. So, yeah-

    5. JR

      And how do they measure that?

    6. AS

      So from, let's say, 19... F- by every measure, by the way. But let's say take between 1955 and 1988, the rates of adolescent suicide quadrupled. So that's just one measure, but there are many. I mean, we've seen it from non-suicidal self-harm, suicidal self-harm, all of these rates have gone up for adolescents. Um, but they, but they've been in decline for, mental health in this c- you know, ha- of teens has been in decline for years. There's also some other statistics or some other reasons I don't think phones explain the whole story. One of them is that in 2016, the CDC came out with a report and they said that one in six kids between the ages of two and eight, these aren't kids with smartphones, between the ages of two and eight, one in six kids had a mental health or behavioral diagnosis. That's a lot of kids. That's a lot of kids with a mental health diagnosis, right?

    7. JR

      Do you think that it factors parents with mental health issues and there's m- I think m- more adults are anxious, more adults are suffering from anxiety and depression, at least diagnosed anxiety and depression now than ever before.

    8. AS

      I think, uh, uh, adults are absolutely passing on their anxiety to their kids. And the, actually we're seeing that in, you know, (laughs) Jean Twenge came out with this book, Generations, and one of the things she said in it is that boys, even though teenage girls have the worst mental health in general, boys from liberal families had worse mental health than girls from conservative families in terms of anxiety and depression. So why should that be? We know the girls are on social media more.... right?

    9. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    10. AS

      Boys, you know, that's not their thing, right? They're, they're into video games or whatever. But, um, I think part of the reason is what you said, there are certain families that are passing on anxiety about things like climate change. But I also think, um, it shows that it's in the environment we're giving them. We're not giving kids a healthy life, right? We think that we can give them an unhealthy life and just pour in the mental health resources and remediate. But it doesn't work like that. And then the last reason I don't think that phones totally explain everything, or s- or social media, is because there are... In societies where they use just as much social media, it's not great for their, the kids' mental health, no doubt. But they have much better rates of anxiety and depression than we do, countries like Japan and Israel. Where kids have more independence, they have more freedom, they have more... They're able to take more risks on their own and they, they walk home from school, they kind of, they do all kinds of, you know, jobs outside of the house, uh, like run errands for the family. And, um, they get a feeling of, first of all, sh- short-term joy and long-term satisfaction from being able to take risks, see what they can handle. But also a feeling of, of efficacy in the world.

    11. JR

      So, that, that's an interesting t- t- statistic that you were saying that... So, conservative families have less depressed kids? Is that what you're saying?

    12. AS

      Apparently boys from depr- from conservative fam- sorry, boys from liberal families have higher anxiety rates than girls from conservative families.

    13. JR

      But above, like, uh, if you just looked at the norm, more girls generally-

    14. AS

      Yes.

    15. JR

      ... have anxiety?

    16. AS

      Right.

    17. JR

      But in conservative families, girls are less anxious than boys from liberal families.

    18. AS

      That's right. And, I mean, we could speculate as to why, there are lots of proposed reasons for that. But one of the many, you know, things that we might... First of all, we know it's in the environment at that point. It's not an organic... Whatever these kids are going through, it's not organic, right?

    19. JR

      Right.

    20. AS

      So we know it's something we're pouring into their life. And I think one of the things might be that, aside from the fact that parents in conservative families may be more comfortable asserting their authority with kids, and that's a, that's an old finding. We've known for generations now that authoritative parenting means, meaning not cold parenting, not cruel, not unloving-

    21. JR

      Rules.

    22. AS

      ... but rules. Those kids have better mental health, they're happier, and they're more successful in all kinds of ways. So, it may be something to do with comfort with rules, but also they're less likely to turn their kids' lives over to a mental health expert.

  11. 26:51 – 42:32

    Rules and guardrails: authoritative parenting vs. permissive surveillance

    1. JR

      Is it... W- what... So what is the speculation as to why rules alleviate anxiety? Is it because there's structure? There's more structure to the world, so seem, things seem less open-ended and less chaotic, and-

    2. AS

      That's right. I think it's something to do with that. Kids need guardrails. They know they're not ready to be in charge. You know, parents today are so quick to put kids in charge, "What do you want? Where would you like to go to school? What would you like to eat for dinner?" You know, putting kids in charge. Um, but we've known since the 1960s, Diana Baumrind did this research years ago and it's some of the mo- it's some of the sturdiest, uh, research we have because they've replicated it hundreds of times. And they've shown that loving p- parents who are also rule-bound, they call them authoritative, not authoritarian, which is the cold, unloving rule-bound-

    3. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    4. AS

      ... but the loving and rule-bound parents tend to raise the happiest kids 'cause kids knows there are guardrails. And here's the thing, the people who are making the rules aren't some expert mom hired, they're the people who love me most. They're my parents.

    5. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    6. AS

      They're the ones in charge. I think that's really comforting to kids.

    7. JR

      That's interesting because that's not what people think of when they think of authoritari- or authoritative parents.

    8. AS

      Right.

    9. JR

      They think of parents that are restricting their children and the children are gonna rebel.

    10. AS

      That's right. I mean, there's, there's a lot of really good research on this, but they, it actually doesn't create more rebellious kids by virtually every metric. They, you, they do much better in all, you know, in all kinds of circumstances and, and, and all kinds of situations. And the permissive... What they used to have was permissive parents and authoritarian parents, those were the other two extremes. Permissive parents let kids do whatever they wanted and authorita- t- tarian parents, you know, said, "Obey at all costs." And they were fairly cold. And their kids didn't end up great in terms of mental health. But here's... Um, but, you know, today we don't even have per- permissive parents in, in, you know, in my view. I think we have something even worse, we have permissive parents wh- who are therapeutic, meaning they're always asking kids what they want but they're... And, and they're never asserting their authority but they're doing something else, they're hovering and surveilling their kids.

    11. JR

      Mm.

    12. AS

      And so it's permissive without the independence.

    13. JR

      Mm. Yeah. There's a, that, that's a weird one, right? Like the Snap Maps and stuff-

    14. AS

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      ... where you're following your kids-

    16. AS

      Right.

    17. JR

      ... all around Snapchat.

    18. AS

      They're surveilling them. These kids-

    19. JR

      Yeah.

    20. AS

      ... have no independence. They have no space for mom, it's not... Or dad, and it's not doing them any good.

    21. JR

      Hmm. Why do you think it is that things have moved in this general direction? Like, why do you think it is that more parents are seeking psychotherapy for their children and that it's having this negative effect?

    22. AS

      So I think, you know, I'm, I'm at the tail end of Gen X, 1978 was the year I was born. And I think with my... You know, we were the high water mark of divorce. And I think a lot of, you know, teenagers my... you know, who grew up when I did, they felt like, "You know, my parents were divorced, they weren't there for me, I wish I had had someone I could talk to." And so they sort of naively... And they had good experiences in therapy, and they sort of naively, you know, watched Good Hu- Will Hunting and they thought, "You know, therapy is good for everyone." And they sort of naively turned their kids over to a mental health expert right away. You know, at the first... I talked to moms who's h- signed their kids up for therapy because a cat died, because their grandma died, because basically anything that would happen in their life, even routine events. And yeah, look, having your grandparents die is very sad, but that's not, you know, a, you know, unexpected trauma. That's part of life, right?

    23. JR

      Yeah.

    24. AS

      And signing up your kid with a therapist might help if they're having a real problem, but c- but it could also introduce other problems. And I think that's what we're seeing.

    25. JR

      Yeah, there's a, a th- there's a reluctance to let children experience discomfort.

    26. AS

      Right. Exactly.

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. AS

      Exactly.

    29. JR

      And that's really the only way you learn. You have to, you, we learn, I mean, obviously bad feelings can be devastating, but bad feelings also can m- let you understand the landscape of the world better and understand what to do and what not to do and what the consequences are of certain actions. You know, I had, um, some friends when I was growing up that got, uh, that became addicted to drugs and it, it sealed the deal for me, like with cocaine was a big one. Like, I've never tried cocaine and one of the main reasons is because of my friends that I had when I was in high school. I saw the negative feel- it was horrible. It was horrible to experience, it's horrible as a friend to watch all that go down. But those bad feelings teach you something.

    30. AS

      That's right.

  12. 42:32 – 1:16:49

    Institutions and social media: lawsuits, school phone bans, and Zoom/text therapy

    1. JR

      Okay, dozens of states sue Instagram parent Meta over addictive features and youth mental health harms. So, this is, uh, I think they're, they're talking about algorithms. They're talking about how algorithms target children, demand users' constant attention. Meta has profited from children's pain by intentionally designing its platforms with manipulative features that make children addicted to their platforms while lowering their self-esteem. Hmm.... yeah, that's that lady from New York.

    2. AS

      That's nice.

    3. JR

      Um, "Social media companies, including Meta, have contributed to a national youth mental health crisis and they must be held accountable." Uh. Interesting.

    4. AS

      Florida's got a separate lawsuit for misleading users about potential health risks.

    5. JR

      (smacks lips) How do they mislead them?

    6. AS

      Uh, I'd have to read the lawsuit.

    7. JR

      Mm. So it says, "Meta's design choices and practices take advantage and contribute to young users' susceptibility to addiction," the complaint reads. "They exploit psychological vulnerabilities of young users through f- the false promise that meaningful social connection lies in the next story, image or video, and that ignoring the next piece of social content could lead to social isolation." That seems like a stretch. I don't, I don't think they say that. No one says that ignoring the next piece of soc- social content could lead to social isolation. What they do say is that-

    8. AS

      (sighs)

    9. JR

      ... children feel left out if they're not on social media because there's a lot of these little chat groups-

    10. AS

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      ... and they share videos and information. That's how they find about songs and bands that they like and movies that they like and television shows that they like. So, it is a part of society today in, as sort of an inexorable part of society.

    12. AS

      Well, why? I mean, I think there are a couple reasons why. One of them is we made no effort to, to even stop them during the school day. Right?

    13. JR

      Right.

    14. AS

      That would have been real easy.

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. AS

      You can be on your phone, just not during the school day. That's so obvious that (laughs) it's-

    17. JR

      Yeah.

    18. AS

      ... it's almost pathetic that we don't have that already in place, right? 'Cause why, why do you need to be checking your texts? You're in school with your friends, right?

    19. JR

      Right.

    20. AS

      So, (laughs) um, so there were things that we could do and could have done, but we didn't do them. And I think one of the reasons was that, I think that mental health experts... I mean, I know, there are therapists who allow therapy over text message.

    21. JR

      Oh, boy.

    22. AS

      Right? They are, they, they have-

    23. JR

      That seems crazy.

    24. AS

      Yeah, it's crazy. But they have, uh, they have made no effort to stop this, the m- mental, to warn the public about this. And frankly, I think in many cases, they've undermined it, right? There are therapists who went on Zoom and never went back, right?

    25. JR

      Yeah. Well-

    26. AS

      They'll still see-

    27. JR

      ... Zoom is a little different, right? 'Cause you're, you actually are interacting with a person, even though it's through a screen. You're communicating with them, right?

    28. AS

      You are, um, but you get none of the benefits of in-person. So, um, you know, they, this they have measured and, um, the benefits of being in-person, seeing someone face-to-face, the psychic benefits are real. Even when w- you're with someone you don't wanna be with. The kids who went home for the lockdowns and were in a big household full of relatives they didn't wanna be stuck with when they wanted to be in college-

    29. JR

      Right.

    30. AS

      ... they did better in terms of mental health than the kids who were isolated, uh, and stayed in school.

  13. 1:16:49 – 1:18:32

    Rumination culture and ‘trauma’ as identity: microaggressions, hypochondria, and resilience

    1. JR

      One of the things that drives me the most nuts about universities is this term microaggressions.

    2. AS

      Right.

    3. JR

      Which is so crazy. It's like looking for things to be bigger than they are.

    4. AS

      Right.

    5. JR

      Taking a very small thing, whether it's someone, like, rolling their eyes at you or, or saying something that, you know, m- might be insensitive and calling that insensitive thing a microaggression.

    6. AS

      That's right, and it's exactly right, and one of the things I looked at was, are we turning these kids into emotional hypochondriacs?

    7. JR

      Hmm.

    8. AS

      And what I mean is I interviewed a world expert, this man Arthur Barsky at Harvard Medical School, on hypochondriasis, being a hypochondriac, what they, they now call it illness anxiety disorder or somatic symptom disorder, and what is it? So, it turns out what it is is people who put hyper-focus on the normal pains we all feel. They're not faking it. They're just attending to the normal pains and ex- and, and, i- increasing their pain by doing that. And people who turn their pain into an organizing principle of life, of their whole lives-

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. AS

      ... they have a hard time overcoming it.

    11. JR

      It becomes their identity.

    12. AS

      It becomes their identity, and that's what kids are doing today about their emotional pain. "Oh, I have social anxiety. I had trauma from my breakup." You don't have trauma from your breakup, okay? You br- you had a breakup, and it's painful, but, but using these, you know, psychiatric terms-

    13. JR

      Trauma.

    14. AS

      ... it's not helping.

    15. JR

      Right.

    16. AS

      It's not. It's exaggerating the pain, and it's making that pain feel worse. And I'm not minimizing these kids' pain. They are rea- they are in real pain, and they're making it worse.

    17. JR

      I would be really fascinated to see you have a conversation with someone who is a therapist, who engages-

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