William J Doherty

Quote, "Many experts believe estrangement between adult children and their parents are becoming an epidemic in the US just like divorce in the 1970s.

Much like then, the movement is driven by a convergence of large societal trends, this time the rise of social media algorithms, changing therapeutic approaches, and a broadening definition of trauma." William Doherty, a therapist and professor emeritus of family social science at University of Minnesota, says, quote, "We are at a cultural tipping point.

A confluence of forces is leading to certain actions and choices that were considered taboo before now becoming acceptable and even celebrated, and then they spread via social contagion." All right, listen to this.

One Cornell sociologist has now estimated that 10% of the US population is estranged from or has cut ties with a parent or child at any given time, while 25% report themselves as estranged from any close relative.

This time, the rise of social media algorithms, changing therapeutic approaches, and a broadening definition of trauma.

We're at a cultural tipping point, said William Doherty, therapist and professor emeritus of family social science at the University of Minnesota.

A confluence of forces is leading to certain actions and choices that were considered taboo before now becoming acceptable and even celebrated.

And then they spread via social contagion.

Why would that be happening right now? It doesn't make sense.

Well, it says, "We're at a cultural tipping point," says William Doherty, a therapist and a professor emeritus of family social science at the University of Minnesota.

"A confluence of forces is leading to certain actions and choices that were considered taboo before now become acceptable and even celebrated as they spread via social contagion." And what I think this attitude here is that, like, it's all just, like, sort of, like, therapy culture and, like, you know, millennials and zoomers who, like, care too much about their individuality and blame everything on their parents.

Therapists-

On that basis, I'm fairly positive about the model being able to survive without requiring any changes, where other models might require a lot of changes just to these new findings.

And as far as Ivan's wish for the future, basically, he had expressed that in an interview with Bill Doherty at an AMF long time ago, but I think his message is still valid for me, which is that family therapy as such, systemic family therapy, contextual therapy, should actually shed a light to the determinants, if you want, of health and illness.

that somehow that should be the model to think about health and illness, about health and mental health and mental illnesses, and that it should also serve as a guideline to inspire institutions.

Well said.

You mentioned the Bill Doherty early 1990 series at the AMFT national conferences.

That is, I've said on the show many times, and Bill and I have talked, that was one of the forerunners and inspirations for this podcast series.

So I believe you've captured your husband's professional legacy very well in that question.

I did not.

This time, the forces are social media algorithms, new therapy fads, and a definition of trauma that keeps expanding.

William Doherty, therapist and professor emeritus of family social science at the University of Minnesota: "We're at a cultural tipping point.

A confluence of forces is leading to certain actions and choices that were considered taboo before now becoming acceptable and even celebrated, and then they spread via social contagion." Hard post-pandemic numbers are scarce.

Karl Pillemer's twenty-twenty book Fault Lines found ten percent of Americans estranged from a parent or child at any given time, and twenty-five percent cut off from some close relative.

Braver Angels was founded in 2016. during the midst of the intensity of the 2016 election.

And we knew that we were, it was really the brainchild of our first president, David Blankenhorn, and then Bill Doherty, one of our co-founders, and myself, and others, we helped to start it.

But it was really, the idea was, okay, so we've got growing political polarization in the U.S. for at least a couple of decades now.

and you know coming to a kind of crescendo in 2016 at the time and we were figuring out you know what we wanted to do we knew we wanted to found an organization that was addressing polarization head-on but you know where are we going to be a most uh kind of an academic organization you know bringing together scholars to study and talk about it or a grassroots organization bringing together ordinary people so the 2016 election results were in trump was elected and um David Blankenhorn lives in Upper West Side, New York City.

And I said, let's do it.

And so we met at the South Lebanon Community Center here in Ohio, and that's exactly what we did.

Our friend Bill Doherty, who's a lifelong marriage and family therapist, he put together, he designed a what we know now as our first red-blue workshop.

So we went along and we started doing more workshops like that.