Excerpt from
Santa Clara University’s Crazy Idea of Human Sexuality
In Multicultural Counseling, we were told that “objective, rational, linear thinking,” “delayed gratification,” and making a “plan for the future” are traits of “white culture.”
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When I went public anonymously on Substack, I realized I had stumbled onto something larger. The entire field of educating therapy has been hollowed out and filled in with critical theory. Therapists are no longer trained to be neutral; they’re trained to be agents of political change. Concepts like modesty and marital privacy aren’t merely treated as optional or even dismissed. They’re seen as oppressive norms to be actively combated.
In Multicultural Counseling, we were told that “objective, rational, linear thinking,” “delayed gratification,” and making a “plan for the future” are traits of “white culture.” I was required to preface mock therapy sessions by “naming my whiteness” and warning that I might misread clients because of my race. In Human Sexuality, we were taught that children with six months of “gender distress” should be “affirmed” in their belief that they are of the opposite sex—without deeper assessment, even when trauma or autism was present.
These ideas are being promoted by the field’s top bodies. The American Psychological Association, American Counseling Association and Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs have adopted standards grounded in critical theory.
Therapists influence decisions about “gender transition,” family custody, school discipline and even criminal sentencing. When clinicians are trained to see everything through an ideological lens, rather than with ethical neutrality, the consequences extend far beyond the therapy room.
I’m 26, newly married, mother of a 1-year-old girl and a few credits from graduating. I pursued every institutional channel available. I even sought short-term therapy through campus mental-health services, which I was denied. A staff psychologist told me that my department has a history of demanding intimate self-disclosure from students—a practice he regards as unethical.
Speaking up comes with risk. But in a field where dissent is discouraged and students are coerced, I’ve chosen to say: No more.
Ms. Best is a graduate student at Santa Clara University.
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