Jun 25, 2026 · 25 min · 8 segments
After a ramble about my feelings about counselling and psychology I give advice to someone who is sick of dating people who aren't over their exes, and talk about how to deal with being ghosted…
Qualifications also go some way in regulating and preventing scammers although there are plenty of highly certified terrible counsellors and therapists out there.
Qualifications and professional bodies like the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy are certainly useful in this area.
However, the dogma taught on these courses is based on theories by old dusty white men about old dusty white men.
Freud, for example, had a hard time using the scientific method and took a more vibes-based approach, a bit of a crackpot coke fiend, they say.
And studies of early theories and approaches were done predominantly on white men and completely with a narrow view of the world and everyone's place in it.
Those with mental illness being studied like bugs in jars rather than being involved in the process has led to many misunderstandings and harmful practices.
And those of us who didn't fit the mold at the time still struggle against the stigma that psychology has put on us.
I don't really need to mention that being queer used to be considered a mental illness.
Being trans, for example, is still highly medicalized and connected with the diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Many seek out a diagnosis in order to have the theoretical possibility of gender affirming care, which the majority are denied for a long time due to prohibitive waiting times and the extreme costs of going private.
Many people don't survive this.
Neurodivergence is another highly misunderstood experience by the world of psychology and healthcare.
When I was getting my medical degree, for example, we were still being taught about a quote-unquote cure for autism being a nasal spray to trigger the brain to produce more oxytocin.
The idea being that this would increase feelings of empathy and create more convenient behaviour in the person using the nasal spray.
This spray was tested on young children from the ages of 3 to 12.
And they measured, quote unquote, progress with a social responsiveness scale, which was graded by the child's caregiver.
This completely misunderstands the lived experience of someone with autism.
There is clearly not a lack of empathy and empathy.
It's very upsetting.
It really does all come down to convenient behavior.
That has been the priority for the medical establishment.
Able to sit still in a classroom and focus on a teacher, able to tolerate a typical work environment, able to earn money and form heterosexual, cisgender, monogamous, reproductive family units, because these units are easier to tax and control.
and protect governments from than liberate people being themselves and supporting each other.
It makes sense that we are, you know, fenced into these units.
And failure to be fenced in, and I do mean failure, means that there is something wrong with you because there's certainly nothing wrong with this weirdly specific request that society makes of you to fit into this box.
Qualifications also go some way in regulating and preventing scammers although there are plenty of highly certified terrible counsellors and therapists out there.
Qualifications and professional bodies like the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy are certainly useful in this area.
However, the dogma taught on these courses is based on theories by old dusty white men about old dusty white men.
Freud, for example, had a hard time using the scientific method and took a more vibes-based approach, a bit of a crackpot coke fiend, they say.
And studies of early theories and approaches were done predominantly on white men and completely with a narrow view of the world and everyone's place in it.
Those with mental illness being studied like bugs in jars rather than being involved in the process has led to many misunderstandings and harmful practices.
And those of us who didn't fit the mold at the time still struggle against the stigma that psychology has put on us.
I don't really need to mention that being queer used to be considered a mental illness.
Being trans, for example, is still highly medicalized and connected with the diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Many seek out a diagnosis in order to have the theoretical possibility of gender affirming care, which the majority are denied for a long time due to prohibitive waiting times and the extreme costs of going private.
Many people don't survive this.
Neurodivergence is another highly misunderstood experience by the world of psychology and healthcare.
When I was getting my medical degree, for example, we were still being taught about a quote-unquote cure for autism being a nasal spray to trigger the brain to produce more oxytocin.
The idea being that this would increase feelings of empathy and create more convenient behaviour in the person using the nasal spray.
This spray was tested on young children from the ages of 3 to 12.
And they measured, quote unquote, progress with a social responsiveness scale, which was graded by the child's caregiver.
This completely misunderstands the lived experience of someone with autism.
There is clearly not a lack of empathy and empathy.
It's very upsetting.
It really does all come down to convenient behavior.
That has been the priority for the medical establishment.
Able to sit still in a classroom and focus on a teacher, able to tolerate a typical work environment, able to earn money and form heterosexual, cisgender, monogamous, reproductive family units, because these units are easier to tax and control.
and protect governments from than liberate people being themselves and supporting each other.
It makes sense that we are, you know, fenced into these units.
And failure to be fenced in, and I do mean failure, means that there is something wrong with you because there's certainly nothing wrong with this weirdly specific request that society makes of you to fit into this box.
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