Bad Therapist
By Ash Compton
At a moment when therapy speak has made it into the mainstream and trauma is a national preoccupation, it's high time to examine the shadow side of mental health. Bad Therapist Podcast takes an amused, informed look at the bad actors mucking around in the world of psychology. Cads, opportunists, and charlatans have been a part of this field since the beginning; some of them have even made lasting contributions to the field. Co-hosted by psychotherapist Ash Compton and journalist Rachel Monroe, both big fans of therapy and big critics of those who abuse its insights, Bad Therapist delves into two centuries of sketchy behavior, spanning everything from questionable nineteenth-century hypnotists to the TikTok-famous therapy hustlers.
3 episodes
All Episodes
Hysteria's Legacy--Dismissing Distress and Mirroring Societal Bias
Hysteria's history reveals medicine's tendency to pathologize distress, especially in women, rather than understand suffering, a pattern echoing today's dismissal of legitimate concerns.
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Hysteria Diagnosis: Evolving Cultural Anxieties and Medical Biases
Hysteria's diagnosis reveals societal anxieties about women, evolving from a "wandering womb" to a versatile "wastebasket" for unexplained symptoms, often driven by physician incentives.
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Diluted Emotional Labor: Workplace Concept Misapplied to Relationships
Emotional labor, originally workplace-focused, now often misapplied to relationships, obscures its true meaning of managing feelings for a wage and can hinder direct communication.
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