Elizabeth, psychology has a term for this shortcoming from a therapist, uh, countertransference?

Yes.

It's really a term that describes what happens when therapists take their own views, opinions, narratives, and place them onto a patient.

Therapy expects this.

Psychology expects this.

Therapists are human, but therapists are also trained to try to work to be more objective, to bring wisdom to that relationship rather than their own views.

A- and this trend that you're reporting on where therapists can't rein in their own bias, how is it showing up in patients' experiences?

I talked to so many people who are in therapy, so many therapists, and one woman told me that she was very happy in her single life, and she had a full life, many friends, great work, but her therapist repeatedly told her, "You're really not gonna be happy till you find somebody.

[laughs]

... are really, uh, going crazy about this.

Um, there's, there's some strong supporters for it, and but also business owners want it.

There's artists who say this is, you know, beautiful.

The, the environmentalists want this, and they say, you know, g- the bird doesn't get more protections if it's made the state bird, but it does get more attention, and then that may help it.

Uh, and you know, this is a bird that could use some, some protection.

[laughs] And then, um, the Florida literati, Dave Barry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and humorist, and Carl Hiaasen, you know, the author and, you know, former columnist, these people are getting behind it too.

What's that about?

Elizabeth, explain the shaming.

basically we we are sleep is very important all sorts of our success is built on whether we sleep well at work in our relationships you know personal home life and and work life it's really a foundation of health it our health suffers if we don't sleep and in recent years people have become obsessed with that idea and so here we are worrying about it so much that it's harming ourselves So much of the shaming is cultural.

And we live in a society with a Protestant work ethic where, you know, hard work is valued.

It's told what we do.

Early bird gets the worm.

Also, our loved ones are a big problem here for our sleep shame because, frankly, they can be really disappointed and judgy if they think that we're not sleeping correctly.

If it's a partner, sometimes they want us to, you know, go to bed when they do, wake up when they do, you know, and they can just think like, You're not doing this right.

I don't need seven hours all the time.

Elizabeth, what did you look at?

Basically, sleep is very important.

All sorts of our success is built on whether we sleep well at work, in our relationships, personal home life, and work life.

It's really a foundation of health.

Our health suffers if we don't sleep.

And in recent years, people have become obsessed with that idea.

And so here we are worrying about it so much that it's harming ourselves.

But I'm also not operating heavy machinery and I'm not dragging like so that I don't need seven hours all the time.

What do the experts say about how to avoid estrangement?

You know, it's something that it's really comes down, frankly, to good communication.

So one thing that I found interesting when I was researching this article is that it's really the children that are pushing the estrangements.

There's no upside to a parent.

to losing their child, to losing contact with their child.

So they're usually willing to do whatever it takes to keep that relationship going.

But for the adult children, there's a lot of reasons.

What else did you take away from this as you were speaking to all these experts?

I presume it's therapeutic for some of the moms to say this stuff on TikTok and get feedback and support, but has any of it led to any healing?

that's the thing can you well you have to define healing i guess but you know is it leading to reconciliation yeah likely not like if you're out there complaining about your child no it's not your child's not going to call you and um i think some there's some blind spots in this and that you know you don't understand that piece of it you know there's in some cases maybe um More of a me, me.

It's my time.

I'm going to speak out as the parent, but not necessarily, you know, such a willingness to listen to the child.

The children out there have their own groups and they're busy telling you my parents aren't listening.

But what's what's underlying a lot of this is that there's many, many kids who are estranged themselves or there's families that have estranged men.

And really, it's a it's a tragedy.

So as a parent, I have to ask, how do some of these parents say that they don't know why they're estranged?

Life as a caregiver can be like what at times?

It can be, as I said, it can be overwhelming.

You're dealing with, you're out of your own life.

You don't have a lot of time for your own life because you're taking care of somebody else.

And I have help, but you're taking care of somebody else.

It can be chaotic.

You don't have a schedule that you can adhere to always.

And sometimes people ask like genuine questions as follow ups.