My Chat with Abigail Shrier, Bestselling Author of "Bad Therapy" (THE SAAD TRUTH_1665)

Please visit www.ralston.ac/humanities-ma?... to find out more about Ralston College's MA in the Humanities.
Abigail Shrier's latest book: shorturl.at/gvC49
#parenting #therapy #children #victim #feelings #resilience #jewish #campus
_______________________________________
My book The Saad Truth about Happiness: 8 Secrets for Leading the Good Life is available for order:
www.amazon.com/Saad-Truth-abo...
_______________________________________
To subscribe to my exclusive content on Twitter, please visit my bio at / gadsaad
_______________________________________
If you appreciate my work and would like to support it:
subscribestar.com/the-saad-truth
/ gadsaad
paypal.me/GadSaad
You can also click on the "Heart Thanks" icon immediately below the clip.
_______________________________________
Please visit my website www.gadsaad.com, and sign up for alerts. If you appreciate my content, click on the "Support My Work" button. I count on my fans to support my efforts. You can donate via Patreon, PayPal, and/or SubscribeStar.
_______________________________________

[@GadSaad]

My book The Saad Truth about Happiness: 8 Secrets for Leading the Good Life is available for order: www.amazon.com/Saad-Truth-about-Happiness-Secrets/dp/1684512603 _______________________________________ To subscribe to my exclusive content on Twitter, please visit my bio at twitter.com/GadSaad _______________________________________ If you appreciate my work and would like to support it: subscribestar.com/the-saad-truth patreon.com/GadSaad paypal.me/GadSaad You can also click on the "Heart Thanks" icon immediately below the clip. _______________________________________

[@lilja4ever261]

"In general, people underestimate evil." Well put. Especially those of us who haven't really come face to face with it.

[@aposematicayu]

I taught anatomy and physiology lab for a year in grad school recently. I'd say 10-15% of my students also had some type of learning disability and were granted all sorts of things like extra time on exams. Most of them honestly seemed like bs. I really believe a lot of the anxiety they claim is just regular social awkwardness that they have pathologized. One of the students who inquired about how the extra time on a lab practical would work never needed the extra time and was an A student. However another student who had previously failed the course and required significant alternatives I fully believe should not even be in college. The entire thing is ridiculous imo.

[@user-og2wt3le4j]

At my university disability learning center, a staff member told me she has seen as much as 25% of a class get special permission to write exams at their office. This means they get extra time. These students also get extra consideration for essays, lab assignments, online exercises, and projects. They have to get certified with some form of disability. Usually this is a non visible disability such as ADHD, anxiety disorder, various learning disabilities, and depression. I even had a student go to the center and say his hand hurt from writing so many mid-terms. And they actually bought it as a disability and for the next three years could get extra time for exams and assignments. The problem is these students will graduate and be shocked to see employers will not put up with this nonsense.

[@proudatheist2042]

​@@user-og2wt3le4jas a former reading remediation and special education teacher, I agree with you. One of my former 5th grade students would have a meltdown if he didn't want to do something/didn't immediately understand something and blame it on "his hands hurting." I told him that he should cut back on his favorite after school hobby to save his hands. He never used that particular excuse with me again.

[@elusivemayfly7534]

I am Christian, grew up in the rural American South in the 80s and 90s. I never heard anti-Semitic speech. Like many Christians (not all, I know), my family and community held Jewish people in high regard as brothers and sisters. I still live in the South and still don’t hear that kind of thing in my “offline” life, thank goodness. I was truly horrified after some of the events in the last couple years. I could not believe what people were posting. I genuinely did not believe more than a handful of people in the US / Canada / UK thought that way.

[@seasidesue816]

I agree. Anyone who was paying attention could just “feel” the slow rise of antisemitism over the last couple of years. It has been very disturbing. Whereas, racism against blacks has been overblown, in my opinion.

[@larryl164]

​@@seasidesue816unfortunately, I'm longer can say "slow".

[@MaryC-co8fm]

@@seasidesue816 Read the book, The Question of Zion, by a professor in NY, who is a Zionist. He says that anti-Semitism is rising because American Jews do not speak out about atrocities committed against non-Jews in Israel and the Occupied Territories. This increases the hatred of Jews. As someone who is l00 percent Ashkenazi, I agree. There is much more anti-Semitism right now because of Israel's actions in Gaza and the US's aiding and abetting it and the lack of American Jews speaking out.

[@tombarrett7797]

I bought the audiobook from Abigail. I thought it was great and made so much sense to me and what I see in young people (and the parents). Highly recommended. Love you work Abigail and of course Gad!

[@UteHeggenTranswidowHeals]

Agree with Saad on the overnights for our children, whether we protect them from possible child sexual molesters. The attitude prevailing today, that young children can "give consent" to inappropriate, adult-centered experiences presents a clear danger in other peoples' homes. I'm now retired but in my teaching career I was a mandated reporter. It's shocking, who, what, where and when.

[@stevenlightfoot6479]

Great. I am not Jewish but by background am Jewish adjacent, and to see the antisemitism happening is out of control. Stay strong, you have my full support.

[@proudatheist2042]

Does that mean you grew up with Jewish friends? Or you grew up close to a Jewish community?

[@stevenlightfoot6479]

@@proudatheist2042 yes and yes.

[@user-og2wt3le4j]

Jonathan Haidt raises similar questions to Abigail. He points to rising rates of mental health to a number of factors. He sees one source as the advent of the smartphone in 2007. It has lead to ways Gen-Z and Millennials access information. It coincided with social media like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and others. When you add helicopter parenting that also is a contributor. When parents plan out the life of their kids and the child is shielded from disappointment, they are hit hard at university when no parent is present to micromanage. There is also a culture among the young to feel they are unique an special. One example is kids getting trophies not for winning at a competition, but for participation. The problem includes other factors such as lack of community. Gen-Z and Millennials are the most "connected" generation, yet fail to develop close meaningful friendships unlike people 50 years ago. There are constant distractions such as online material, leading some young people to spend eight hours a day in their phones. There is a very high rate of younger people reporting being lonely despite being "connected" to an online community.

[@user-wn8cp3qf1x]

I totally agree. It hit me so hard when there was general concern about the poor teenagers who had to deal with the covid measures. I mean my grandparents had to endure 5 years of nazi occupation with starvation during the year of the war and they were unbelievable loving but also incredible tough when needed and they were both 14 when the country got liberated.

[@DrMackSplackem]

Even worse, the reaction was that children were taken out of school altogether, in some cases for 2 years, causing real lasting (and unnecessary) damage.

[@user-og2wt3le4j]

@@DrMackSplackem Even when those kids at a very low risk of catching COVID.

[@annedobson-mack3688]

I would love to hear Dr Saad talk with Dr Gabor Mate. They view childhood trauma very differently.

[@stephen6851]

I thought the same

[@NinjaKittyBonks]

Abigail and The Gadfather ❤

[@SydneyBristow0788]

*Head Bonks* Unite

[@andysorensen3474]

Crushing on Abigail Shrier😉

[@mesenteria]

I point out to parents who express fears over being neglectful or having their child endangered that they're making it all about them....themselves. It's their fear that matters, their concerns, their not wanting to feel badly if their child gets a booboo...it's all about THEM! When I put it that way, the room goes silent.

[@dianaimblan]

What a wonderful show! Thank you both. L'chaim Israel ❤️🇮🇱❤️🇮🇱

[@ronniemacsween6977]

Genesis 12:3, “I will bless those who bless you, And I. will curse him who curses you; And in you, all the. families of the earth shall be blessed.” I am a Canadian and I love and stand with the Jews!!!!!

[@nevbarnes1034]

I'm a British atheist and I also stand with them.

[@MaryC-co8fm]

I'm 100 percent Ashkenazi. Anti Semitism rising is closely related to Israel's brutality in Gaza and the world's horror about it and most Jews refusing to speak out about it and the US aiding and abetting it.

[@nevbarnes1034]

@@MaryC-co8fm Qassam missiles have been landing on Israel for nearly twenty years. Action is overdue.

[@nevbarnes1034]

@@MaryC-co8fm I stand with the Israelis.

[@nevbarnes1034]

@@MaryC-co8fm 71% of Gaza support the Oct 7th acts.

[@proudatheist2042]

I chuckled outloud at Abigail's admission that she doesn't allow her kids to go to sleepovers. That's overcoddling your kids by a big stretch! As long as you trust the other parents and don't get any "off" sensations from them, you are depriving your children if fun experiences with sleepovers that also gives them a chance to be away from you for a night or two.

[@elendil504]

When my kids were young and playing organized sports I remember thinking that there is nothing that our kids do that parents of my generation (Boomers) can't f**k up. It just gets worse.

[@midmomom2490]

Boomers for the most part have really screwed things up

[@joycegifford8826]

@GazaShaiArabs “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

[@scottmacdowall527]

God bless you two for speaking the truth.

[@Doutsoldome]

Excellent! I love both Abigail and Gad and have all of their recent books. Huge fan. However, I want to highlight something - and I know this is not a disagreement with Abigail. Real trauma does exist. PTSD and the more recent diagnostic of complex PTSD are real things and greatly affect the lives of those suffering from them. The point to be made about trauma, I believe, is to take it seriously and not to label any minor nuisance as trauma-inducing. The exaggeration does no one any favors. I just want to caution people to not make the leap from correctly identifying that there is a huge overdiagostication of trauma to thinking that trauma itself is a myth that doesn't exist. It does. (To be clear, I'm not accusing Abigail of making this leap.) Most war veterans don't suffer from PTSD - but some really do. Both things matter: it matters that most of the veterans don't develop PTSD, but it also matters that some do and need professional help. Having said that, I agree that, even for those who do really suffer from trauma, making it a core part of their identity is not a good idea. The path forward can only be one of superation (not of victimhood).

[@user-og2wt3le4j]

There is also the underestimation of trauma. I am thinking of the suicides among Holocaust survivors, sometimes decades after the liberation. The prevailing thought then was once the physical trauma was over there were no long-term side effects. I also think young people today are not allowed to have the same life experiences of my generation. I am a kid of the 1960s. Growing up I had a lot of disappointments without any sheltering by parents. You had to learn from negative experiences and move on.

[@tomaszdziecielski2634]

wait a moment, they speak out against overprotecting children, but their children can´t sleep over bc everyone is a potential pedophile or children are gonna be a mess :-D Something doesn´t add up here. Apart from that it was an interesting discussion.

[@SydneyBristow0788]

A parent being there to guide their child through hard times is different than placing your child with an adult you don't know well. It adds up just fine.

[@tomaszdziecielski2634]

‚Every one‘ is a potential pedophile? Even your best friends family, your relatives, ect. That’s paranoia. Btw, you suppose not let your kid on a school trip

[@user-og2wt3le4j]

Kids have a greater chance of being molested by a family member than any strangers. Same for priests, teachers, neighbors, or scout leaders.

[@proudatheist2042]

If they thought that, I agree with you. Not ever allowing your child to go to sleepover is not wise. Not allowing your child to go to another home where something is seriously "off" or if you don't know the parents decently well is understandable.

[@alexanderpons9246]

Great conversation Gad Saad and yes unfortunately Therapy has become a crutch when it's purpose is to help the person acknowledge the issue and how to move on and face and deal with Life.

[@revpgesqredux]

Answer to her question is primarily economic. End stage central bank currency devaluation

[@ValeriaPugliesiWashington]

I always thought that would be a disadvantage to become a parent in my 40s but my old school upbringing made it kind of easy not to fall for the fragility trap. I'm watching with total disbelief young adults that require more accommodations than my autistic daughter had in elementary school. Honestly I can't stand their parents.

[@proudatheist2042]

Do these young adults have any identified disabilities? Or do these young adults just overreaching and under functioning? Are these young adults that you speak of in your workplace and community? Or are they in some sort of adult program for people with disabilities?

[@ripreinhold6572]

Walker Percy's "Lost in the Cosmos" published in 1983 predicted and/or addressed all these issues.

[@patrickshanahan7505]

#InnerEngineering "We are not prisoners of our past." VCTR These recent generations remind me of those European paintings of children dressed like adults. I had a friend who, every time we went out to dinner, spent 20 minutes asking his son, 3 years old, where he wanted to go for dinner. What a screaming mess! Children ARE NOT miniature adults! Want to "cure" the ADHD of children? Take the desks out of the classroom. Spend about 2 weeks teaching them to sit cross-legged on a mat. DONE. Not a philosophy. Try it!

[@user-og2wt3le4j]

Philip Aries wrote on that, making children appear to be older in dress in paintings. I also used to teach on child labor in the 1800s and early 1900s. Children in many western countries did hard labor in mines, factories, textile mills, fishing, and farming. They also received little formal education. Kids had to grow up fast. Today is another issue. I watched a friend tell his kid after hockey practice to wait ten minutes while we got the car and came to the front door of the rec center. When we got back to the front door there the 9 year old was crying thinking his Dad had abandoned him for life. I doubt many kids today could walk to and from school without their parents walking or driving them.

[@pamelaroyce5285]

In those societies of past centuries, the concept of childhood as a time to be coddled was not known. Children were viewed as little humans, miniature sized adults - but they were *not* given adult level autonomy. Those societies were heavily conscious of rank - not only the royals, the peers/nobility, the gentry, the rising middle classes (with the Industrial Revolution), the tradesmen, and the laborers, but also distinguished between the ranks of marital status and age. Age was a big one. “Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother…” etc. The adults *told* the children what to do and when to do it, granted them permission to speak or not, etc. This was nothing like the “child-centered” parenting and teaching methods from the 1980’s and since, which only made naturally self-centered little people into narcissistic big people. The helicopter parenting of the 1990’s and since only worsened this; those 80’s kids were the parents of the millennials, who got the first smartphones and selfie sticks. 🤦🏻‍♀️

[@patrickshanahan7505]

​@@pamelaroyce5285 What is the referent for "those societies of past centuries"? Where did you learn to say that? University? What did you major in? Are ALL past societies ignorant in this fashion? And what does "parenting" mean. How old is that word? Cattle are "raised", not children.

[@RationalNon-conformist]

First, we must stop the jabs and remove processed foods from their diet, screens, then get out of the desk.

[@proudatheist2042]

It bothers me when parents can't lead effectively and somehow seem to think that their children or toddlers have the exact same thoughts and problem solving experiences as grown adults. The situation you mentioned makes me think there's some patentification going on, where the adult wants to be led along by the child and cared for by the child instead of the adult being the leader and protector. Either way, that's not the best outcome for the child. It makes me think that the child won't ever be able to guess what's the "correct" answer the adult wants, because the toddler is not an adult.

[@marculmer2527]

Sometimes people just forget to put themselves in a Gen-Z type of mind. I don't defend helicopter parents who never say "no" to a child. However, if you have followed the advancements in AI you cannot be positive about your future. High level functioning persons do not know which career or job to choose! This leads to a great deal of desperation for the coming generation! I am fifty years old and have worked succesfully as a certified freelance translator. Recently there have been less and less orders or editing jobs for machine translations. We can all possibly be fired for an AI to take over. I am speaking of first hand knowlegde. Gad, those people are probably not dumb and don't see a future for themselves as everyting will be replaced by AI sooner or later. While I agree with your views, this has not been emphazied enough (or I havent seen it)

[@MaryC-co8fm]

The younger generations feel despairing of the future, you are right. That causes a lot of depression.

[@simonb4689]

More of this

[@proudatheist2042]

Dr. Saad, I don't know if Ralston College will ever give you a leadership position with an honorary speaking position like what they gave to Dr. Peterson.

[@neshama44]

i was abducted as a child by a man who molested me and took me back i never let my kids walk alone i was so paranoid. At 9 years old my ex husband touched my daughter. So it happened under my nose. I dont agree with Dr. Shrier i think it would have helped me to be seen as a child and talk about what happened instead of dealing with it alone and ending up self medicating and being promiscuous. Also there is stories of kids being molested in jewish religious sleep away camps.

[@MaryC-co8fm]

I am so sorry that that happened to you. That is horrible. Abigail has said that in extreme situations, a child may need therapy. She is talking more about the worried well than someone like you who went through major trauma.

[@neshama44]

@@MaryC-co8fm i would have said bad therapist not therapy

[@neshama44]

@@MaryC-co8fm and thank you you touched my soul

[@floorfan7987]

I work at an art college and 95% of these kids have no chance in life !!!

[@proudatheist2042]

Oh, my. That's not good. I take it most of your art students have no common sense? I know a young man who interviewed Dr. Peterson a few years ago had earned an art degree and said that "art school doesn't teach you at all how to market yourself," which is disastrous. I got in to two debates with two different artists on IG. They both seriously lacked common sense and marketing skills. They were both insane in their own ways. The older lady survived because she was married with a working husband. Before that particular artist had her meal ticket opportunity to sell her art, she admitted that she only sold ONE piece professionally before she won her meal ticket art contest.

[@RationalNon-conformist]

I disagree with ‘trauma makes you resilient,’ it can actually hold you back in life. The body does keep score… especially with horrific abuse. Chronic illness is linked to childhood trauma, and no, it’s not because your parents didn’t buy you a Big Mac! You really need to educate yourselves on this subject, have Dr. Chris Palmer on. It’s incredibly toxic to tout trauma as being a strength/character builder. you’re giving credit to malignant narcissists who abuse their children.. they do not deserve such credit. She’s lumping two completely separate situations together, does she not understand how childhood r**** can create multiple personalities, substance abuse issues, etc. Those are real traumas, not the trauma of, “my mommy didn’t hug me and she told me No.” People are being coddled and they are whining, this does not mean you need to minimize actual trauma survivors by making remarks such as, “the body does not remember.” Science proves that the body does remember. Most trauma survivors are not victims, they are survivors.. and yes, their body does remember and they move on with grace and compassion. The people you speak of are highly narcissistic, blue haired, pronoun obsessed, little victims in adult bodies.. don’t lump the two together.

[@proudatheist2042]

Well said and well done. Not everyone becomes ultra resilient from surviving trauma, as you said.

[@a6eman]

Listing to evolutionary physiologists talk about their field and todays society, I can’t help but think their are completely missing the main contributor of the ill’s they speak of. Until recently the children born knew emphatically that their mother loved them enough to risk their lives to bring them into the world as the risk of child birth was quite high. Now the same can not be said. Particularly in 1960 at the advent of the birth control pill when the concept of “was I a mistake?” came into the realm of contemplation for the youth. What does the combination do to the minds and social interactions of further generations.?

[@user-og2wt3le4j]

Same with women who had the kid because abortion was illegal. Many mothers will grow to resent the kid and what could have been.

[@proudatheist2042]

Just because women in the past didn't have wide spread access to or knowledge about effective contraceptive methods does not mean that all women were good mothers or that they wanted as many children as they had.

[@darbyohara]

I’ve been saying it for years, THERAPY DOESNT WORK We have the greatest number of mental health professionals, highest spending, most pharmaceutical options, and greatest awareness ever… and yet people are the most mentally ill and unhealthy EVER therapists don’t have any incentive to “cure” or effectively treat the patient, and are in fact incentivized to keep the patient coming back. Not to mention the mental healthcare profession approached everything from a female centric perspective and really don’t use objective empirical research to back up their practice. It’s all guessing and conjecture based on feelings. Very little real scientific empirical data in the field. 68% of psychology studies could not be replicated, meaning their non scientific and totally invalid

[@ajstrauss6320]

Your lack of empathy and understanding of the human condition is stunning.

[@MaryC-co8fm]

You are spot on. I am a therapist myself, an older one. I have never been successful and have squeaked by financially because I don't enable my clients. If she complains incessantly about her husband, I suggest she focus on his good points; if she's about to have an affair, I tell her why she may harm herself and her family; if he's smoking marijuana every day, I let him know why it's bad for his health; and if someone doesn't have mental health problems, I tell the person they are fine. And in many cases, they stop seeing me because they only want to hear what they want to hear. The successful, wealthy therapists are the ones who don't challenge but just affirm.

[@proudatheist2042]

​@@MaryC-co8fmthat was brave for you to admit.

[@lorddavidlawrence]

24:13 WTF?

[@tomaszdziecielski2634]

Gad: everyone is a potential pedophile, Abigail: children are gonna be a mess when they sleep over. But they supposedly are against overprotection of children :-D

[@midmomom2490]

I agree with Gad on this…the cell phones unmonitored at other ppls home are a big issue as well

[@tomaszdziecielski2634]

@@midmomom2490 That’s probably bc you’re overprotective. Don’t trust your longtime friends and family, they are potential pedophiles!

[@proudatheist2042]

Thanks for posting that link. What a hypocrite. Children need times away from parents with other people that the parents can trust. Children need to learn what happens to their minds when they don't sleep. Let kids be kids and let them have a night or two with a friend staying up late!

[@EsseQuamViderity]

False correlations. This starts in school with SEL and not counseling. It’s teachers, not mental health professionals.

[@aposematicayu]

Those are related things.

[@SydneyBristow0788]

It's with both. I left a therapist that constantly validated my mental illness as my identity and as an excuse to why all these bad things happened in life. She also believed in generational trauma. Therapists have been captured, and they think they are fixing people when they are causing so much harm. Teachers are just the first step to send children on to therapy.

[@ephraimwinslow]

Therapy is just talking about yourself at length to a hired professional. If you talk about yourself long enough, and aren't a total idgit? You'll introspect at least a little *eventually.* But the introspection had very little to do with the person nodding along to your audio journal.

[@EsseQuamViderity]

You don’t actually know what therapy is.

[@user-bp2ol4wi1c]

its not, you get fresh perspectives otherwise probably not gotten, and much faster from therapist.

[@ephraimwinslow]

@@user-bp2ol4wi1c If you need a full-time interpreter to understand *yourself*? It can only mean you lack agency/an internal voice. And that's basically an unsolvable problem.

[@ephraimwinslow]

@@EsseQuamViderity Strike that, reverse it. (An emotional placebo is still just a placebo. Talking about yourself automatically feels good. That does not make it productive.)

[@user-bp2ol4wi1c]

@@ephraimwinslow no, not full time, in times of mental crisis, it speeds the problem discovery and makes it easier to to it by yourself later. At least it helped me, maybe you got a bad therapist

[@ajstrauss6320]

She really has a distinct lack of empathy.