LDS Doctrine and Therapy Are On A Collision Course

cwic show jeff bennion law of chastity psychology therapy May 02, 2021

What do you do when the consensus of experts in therapy and counseling is in direct opposition to core church doctrine? Jeff Bennion, an LDS therapist, discusses his take on the conflict of church doctrine versus the code of conduct for therapists and counselors highlighted by the Natasha Helfer disciplinary council. Can you trust your LDS therapist or that of your kids? Can the two co-exist? Find out more on this episode of Cwic Show.

Raw Transcript

i think we turned uh what is often an

existential crisis of meaning

into a sickness well you can't heal an

existential crisis

by saying you're sick because you're not

sick

[Music]

all right welcome to quick show i am

your host greg matson i am with

lds therapist and blogger

writer uh jeff benion and we are going

to be talking about the lds church

in therapy a week or two ago we had

the disciplinary council for natasha

helfer

and this really brought to light a lot

of things about

the at least a perceived conflict

between

therapy and the lds church and its

doctrine

and i think natasha helfer

represents one side of this conflict and

i think that jeff

probably represents another side of this

so what i want to do in talking with

jeff here and bringing him on to

the show is get his perspective on this

what are the conflicts where might this

be going

and i mean jeff we live in

much more of a therapeutic world these

days right i mean

i guess that's good for you and your

business but it's

you know that's therapy is a big deal i

mean i hear it all the time everybody

should be in therapy

everybody should go to a therapist isn't

that right

you know i uh i i can't necessarily

argue with that i think everybody would

benefit from therapy i don't know

that everybody needs to do it and on the

other hand some people have been to too

much therapy

okay probably again in the minority in

my profession and saying that but

i'll stand by it okay so i want to bring

and i want to use a little bit about

what natasha helford said

um for those of you who may not have

seen the previous episode or or don't

know who she is she was

she had a disciplinary counsel she was

excommunicated she

came out and said that because she was

in in

conflict with lds church doctrine and

she was

very publicly you know going out and and

talking about how

uh uh you know basically preaching

against church doctrine

and perhaps influencing people against

church doctrine

but here here's something that she said

i want to go through a few of these

points and you tell me what you think

about these and

and uh where therapy stands

in terms of lds members of the church

who are in therapy may want to go to

therapy in the future

and uh what their trust level can be i

know there's a lot of really good lds

therapists out there

but she brings up a couple points one

here is

she says in starting out first of all

she says that

she the reason i'm being called to such

a meeting being her disciplinary counsel

all have to do with the fact that i am a

mental health professional

and certified sex therapist and i am

public and vocal about my stances

supporting and educating about

sexual health which it seems they

being the church do not see as within

compliance within their doctrine

where is this right now i mean this

brings up something i hadn't even

thought about i mean

obviously there's always the uh the

conflict between jerusalem and

alexandria right there's always this

this

the the uh the conflict between academia

and and theology in church right babylon

and zion

exactly exactly so yes what does this

mean what is she

saying here well here's

here's what might surprise you i'm not

sure

that she's wrong about that okay in

other words

uh i look at the state of my profession

and

i look at uh

you know it's it's world view and uh

it is in conflict uh with religion

uh to a substantial degree now that's

not to say all therapists

are on board with what uh natasha is

saying here

but she to give her credit she's

articulating

the mainstream view and the view you're

going to hear from me

tonight is definitely i think it's

defensible

empirically scientifically and

religiously but

it is not the majority of you i am not

in the mainstream as a therapist and you

know maybe it's always been historical

you go back to sigmund freud wilhelm

vent vunt

and some of these early psychology you

know the people the psychiatrists and

psychologists that started the field in

the late 1800s

and all of them but william james i

think were pretty much

hostile entirely to religion

so you know freud saw it as this

displaced father figure

looking for the this the sky god with

some

displaced father and there's this

rebellion you have to kill

your father anyway there's this whole

thing about killing god and

so uh you know you got off we got off on

the wrong foot

for sure okay so

so you're saying you're saying that the

the precedent originally

in in the field of psychology

automatically

has a nietzschean uh component to it

it's just

yeah that that it's not taking into

consideration religion it's not taken in

a consideration of belief in in and

really

can i can i say a belief in morality to

some degree

spiritual morality yeah i mean maybe

uh freud freud would kind of rationalize

morality as kind of a neuroses

neurotic response to certain drives so

he wasn't

himself i couldn't say it would be

unfair to say he was hostile

to traditional morality but but he had

uh certainly a an anti-religious view of

how it formed and certainly some parts

of that

he's he saw as unhealthy uh

and and the other interesting thing is

he he really talked a lot about eros

the uh it's kind of a

freudian test how you define heroes

actually

some people say it's the life force some

people say

it's the sex drive uh and maybe that

tells you more about the person defining

it you know

then than it does freud but uh certainly

this the life force in the and the sex

sexual drives are active uh he believed

in humans from very

young age now i do also need to say i'm

i'm being historical with freud

we don't even cover freud hardly at all

in our

in our graduate program so probably all

my colleagues are getting mad i'm

bringing him up because he's really more

relevant in

english literature programs than uh

modern mental health interesting

but but i think historically you know

like i say we got off on the wrong foot

so she says this about and and and her

argument was

kind of she she she wanted

to make the conflict right she brings up

the conflict and that's her

her battle cry right that that's her

line in the sand

is saying here's my profession and and

here's the church over here

and there is a line in the sand and she

wants the church to change

exactly right and and not the field to

change her

her feelings she says this when a church

which refuses to accept science

and this is any church our church is

included

it and discredits the people that can

most help that community

is is the church's stance if they hang

tight to the law of chastity

are they discrediting members of the of

your community

discrediting uh you mean uh disavowing

or disagreeing well i don't know i'm

just i'm just

i'm just repeating her words right right

yeah our

yeah i mean so you can kind of tell

there if we pick that apart i mean that

is really a great

quote to kind of dissect uh her world

view

and and i don't want to pick on her

because no

like i say she's she's representing the

mainstream and let me also say

i have no opinion on on where what her

membership status should or shouldn't

have

been nor do i all i would say is you

know

it was it was not it's not illegitimate

to have disciplinary councils in

principle

uh is all i'd say i think it's a

legitimate and necessary

function and and i'm gonna leave it to

the local leaders

to make their decision and i understand

she's appealed it so

i i i'm perfectly happy to stay out of

that i i don't have an opinion and i

don't care yeah and then we're not going

down that road at all so

but but if we because again i think she

represents

the dominant view in especially in the

sex

therapy the asect aligned as i talked

about in in my article

will you just say who that who that is

that's the organization

okay that's the american association of

sex education

counselors uh

therapists and uh

anyway i can't remember i think that's

it actually yeah yeah

so they uh and let's so she says

she said something like science my

the church will not accept science

and it's kind of my job

to call that out and and

say it needs to be corrected and let's

take that word

science uh and there is a

philosophy that i call uh scientism

i didn't coin that word there's a lot of

people but some people disagree on what

scientism means so i'll define what i

mean by that

in my view scientism is

a misplaced faith in the conclusions of

science

while neglecting the process of science

in my mind so i i totally believe

and support science i totally reject

scientism to me it's an idol it's an i

false god you worship science is a mode

of inquiry

so you're saying scientism is like a

religion it's you're putting it up at

your highest level right it's what you

believe

and and scientism in my opinion

is more about the mainstream consensus

it's more about the accepted

wisdom of whatever the age is

so scientism would say well whatever

the mainstream opinion is in whatever

scientific field that's

science whereas i reject that and i say

science is a way

to examine certain questions that are

amenable

to empirical answers so

how do people do better you know

what is the are there more or less

effective ways to treat unwanted

pornography use which is in you know

that's one of the controversies here

and whereas scientism would say well

what's what's

the dominant world view there what's the

dominant opinion

science would say well let's look at the

studies

let's look at that research were those

studies well sampled

were the statistical methods applied

appropriately

uh were the conclusions really powerful

enough to really warrant you know or is

it being oversold

is it generalizable uh let me teach you

another acronym

weird w-e-i-r-d a lot of research

is on weirds western educated

industrialized uh

oh brother now i'm forgetting the uh

the art forgot the r but the last one is

developed

anyway this is the wealthy modern uh

world view this is europe uh especially

western europe

it's the united states the privileged

view yes

exactly and there's about five billion

people

in the rest of the world and most of the

research that we've done

is on weirds interesting we're weird

it's a funny acronym because you know we

are the minority so we are kind of the

weird ones

in the world right now and so a lot of

and then the other piece i wanted to

tell you about is we are in the middle

in my field we are in the middle of

what's called a replication

crisis what that means is they have

taken

a bunch of scientists and this is really

all this is science greg

okay they said let's take some of these

foundational

studies and let's reproduce them

let's reproduce them in india let's

reproduce them here

let's see if we get the same result

greg they can only do it half the time

and these

aren't fringe studies so

it really gets my dander up when people

i mean natasha does this but she is you

know this is everybody

almost you know there is a lack of

humility which

uh bothers me in this and other

scientific fields because

the replication crisis now is extending

to other things and

then the behavioral sciences but it

started there so there are some really

do we can we really say we know what we

know in other words about half the

studies you would read about in your

introductory

psychology class are wrong or at least

i i shouldn't say wrong cannot have not

been proven

but it's not as empirical as worse is

it's being represented

right and that is what i call scientism

scientism says

look we have this thing and it's

unimpeachable there's there's no way to

dispute it and i'm saying wait a minute

uh even well-sampled famous studies

have have not been able to be reproduced

and and the studies that

you know if we were to drill into this

with people a lot of the studies they

use are not even

you know as well done as some of these

studies you can't reproduce so

so i i won't i won't claim that i can

demonstrate unequivocally

my position because particularly in the

behavioral sciences it's very difficult

to do this research

uh let me give you another example uh

outcome research is really hard to do

when you're talking about therapy so

outcome research says all right

uh what kind of therapy is best to treat

depression right this is the most common

anxiety

and depression of the two most common

mental health complaints in this country

and so we often we're looking at you

know how does

how well do people treat depression

well is a cognitive behavioral approach

good is a dialectical behavioral

approach good as a narrative approach

good as an internal

systems approach good i mean there's all

these modalities that we learn

they're all supposedly empirically

grounded

but it's actually really hard to say

okay let's randomly assign

some depressed people to these two

categories

and then let's measure you know well one

is our measurement good

everybody uses the depression inventory

and it's probably a good one so i i

don't quibble with that but it's not

always so easy

in other fields and then so we measure

at the beginning of this study we

measure them at the end

and you know what's the change we also

need a control group of no

treatment because uh 50 of

depression major depression will go into

spontaneous remission within

12 months so people get half of the

people that have it

actually get better without any therapy

within 12 months and so you've already

got 50

you kind of just knock off right that

you could just say

so the other differences are really hard

to tease out and then how do you make

sure you're doing the exact same

therapy right is this clinician doing

cognitive behavioral therapy the same

way

as this clinician is and are all

clinicians the same are we little cookie

cutters that you can just

so it's it's hard to really do research

particularly on you know oh this therapy

is is the best one

so again i mean just just summarizing

that then

then the consensus i mean what you're

basically

you're you're shooting holes into the

consensus in in therapy right you're

saying that uh

we may not be even though the consensus

maybe your field is against

some of the church doctrine that

consensus may be incorrect

right so the truth there may not be

actually

a conflict there between the two rather

it's the scientism of the consensus that

that is causing the problem this is uh

this leads me to this

because because again if that's the true

then that that

that brings up several problems i mean

here's one thing that you had stated in

your article that that you had written

on this you said even in the empirical

literature we

we refer to what matters is what

promotes

mental health and well-being

which is which is immediately makes you

think okay so what

how does that determine for example the

goal

how does that determine the questions

that you're asking

right with a client et cetera i'll get

to that in a minute as we ourselves

define it

if truth or even someone else advocating

you continue

for their understanding of truth

impinges

on someone's mental health it is bad

and wrong and needs to stop so

here's one of the big things i really

wanted to get out of this

this this interview here is

what it is is is would the consensus

in your field then be exactly that what

matters

is the short term because i think you

have to define

that you have to say is it is it the

short term

well-being and emotional health

today and this week until i meet with

this client again next week

the most important thing or is it how

do i help this client improve

and progress by having to work through

hard things

yes you're getting to something even

more foundational greg than the

empirical questions

because the the the the practice of

science

doesn't happen in a vacuum it isn't like

where these detached

totally objective people formulating

these hypotheses

and then we test through science and

you've hit on

a really fundamental one which is what

is the good life

you know this this question goes back to

aristotle plato

not to mention you know the old

testament you know

all the way to adam and eve we could say

as latter-day saints right

so what for

uh and this i i i called therapist

narcissus

in in my i saw that and and i

i it's self-deprecating it's appealing

it's all right

it was a strong word but but here's what

i mean

it elaborates on this point so we have

we deal with the individual or the

family

or social workers will sometimes deal

with a community

but uh we don't deal

with norms what are norms

we therapists never think about how

norms are established and maintained

and why they are important you think

about social norms

for example yes right and even think of

one that's not controversial right you

go to

a store you buy some frozen yogurt and

the guy says

sorry i'm not giving you your yogurt and

you know i'm not giving your money back

either

we have a norm that's established there

you know i give you money at a set price

and you give me a good in service

what would happen if that norm broke

down

uh the problem is we therapists don't

care about norms and and

to be fair it's not our job right we're

sitting with an individual

but we call them norms not universals

right and so by the very name there are

people who fall outside the norms

and we therapists are caring we're in

the caring profession so we care about

those people that fall outside the norms

and so we'll often say

oh my gosh these norms are hurting you

know you imagine the bell curve

the norms are hurting these people we

need to get rid of

the norms and you know sometimes maybe

those

norms need to go i'm not saying we're

always wrong about that but

in our narcissism in our caring

well-intentioned narcissism

we look at these people that fall

outside of the norms we feel bad for

them and we want to reorder society

to do that and so we'll look at things

like well

uh people you know that are uh

have you know non-conventional uh sexual

proclivities uh we need to

we need to embrace them and normalize

that and

and do that and and we don't even and

then and then we tie it to your idea

which is well-being

what is healthy right we'll you'll often

hear

people sex servers talk about healthy

behaviors

and there's healthy ways to engage in

them and there's unhealthy ways to

engage in them

but their definitions of well-being

happiness healthy

have very little to do with the way a

traditional

religious view would have or even if you

go back to aristotle

aristotle would take issue with

his you know aristotle's idea of

happiness was really

a life well lived whether you know

whereas we talk about

it the the term in our field is called

you demonic

eudaimonia or you demonic happiness and

it just

it means feeling good right and and

aristotle

uh uh well that was aristotle's sorry

i'm mixing them up we would call it

hedonic

and then there's you demonic and you

demonic is that well-being

that sorry that living well kind of idea

and this is more congruent you know when

when we say

when lehigh says men are that they might

have joy

what does he mean and if you take a

modern therapeutic view

of that word joy

joy equals feeling good about yourself

and your life uh yeah sometimes the

commandments aren't going to lead

follow keeping the commandments aren't

going to lead to that

and yet that idea

you can even graft it under religion and

it's and it's the idea that our goal

in therapy is to help people feel secure

and content

and anything that challenges us or makes

us feel uncomfortable or unhappy

uh could be seen as detrimental to

mental health

and if you graft and so that's the

therapeutic way but there are a lot of

therapists who graft this idea onto god

right

god would never want me to be unhappy

god created me to be happy

see it's in the scriptures right there

in second nephi

and so we call that therapeutic deism

where

god is basically talk about narcissism a

therapist

in the sky that is just you know trying

god's never going to ask hard things of

us he's never going to ask us

to be an outcast or on the outside or

out of the mainstream

he just wants us to be happy he just

wants us to be well adjusted

well that seems to me just let me enter

that that seems to me

to be where he is evolving to

based on based on our society right

as as i heard uh earlier uh yesterday

a a term where he's he's the teddy bear

jesus

yes yes and it's like well

and i get this all the time when i when

i put this this episode on on uh

natasha out there last week that's what

came up in the comments a lot also right

it's a matter of you know it's a

non-judgmental god he's not going to

of course he's going to tolerate

everything because because he's

compassionate

right and and and so the issue there is

is if

you know because you bring up another

point there if if the goal the goal

almost seems like the same thing

between the religion and and therapy

right it's well-being it's happiness

right but it's just it's just the

interpretation of what that

is well it's ultimate versus proximate

happiness

i would say right like i had a pioneer

ancestor who

was well to do uh

and she was a good methodist family i

don't remember if she was methodist or

not but she was well-to-do

a good person and you know she comes

across the planes and

gives up everything husband dies on the

plane you know she loses kids and

childbirth

she does all that she comes here

would she have been happier just staying

home

uh and not converting she was not like

she was a bad person right

why put yourself through that a modern

therapeutic deistic god would never

ask you to make that kind of sacrifice

or sacrifice period

how much is sacrifice involved in that

therapy is sacrifice a a point at all

for someone to grow and be strengthened

and progress personally

is that a part of what you would see in

the mainstream at all

in therapy you can you can be stronger

if you face this you can be stronger and

i can help you do that

i can you know step by step

stepping into the fear a little bit or

stepping into the norm or whatever it

might be

right is that a part of it or are we are

the exact opposite of that in the

consensus

i i think we do both you know the term

we use in therapy

for that kind of sac we don't call it

sacrifice we call it

resilience okay and what that means is

you know

can you pick yourself up do you have the

social support and the

individual strength uh to to keep going

in the face of what can be really

difficult things and we work with people

that have

done you know that are tremendously

disadvantaged that have gone through

horrifying traumas you know and and

we we i think we help most of them

really well and we help them find

and this is where i think there is some

correspondence between therapy and

religion which is

we help our clients find meaning

in that suffering we help them find

purpose and then growth

out of it and and we narrate that in a

way

that they're no longer victims you know

but

survivors and growth and and maybe they

would have rather never been through

that but they

having been through that they they have

gained certain things

that can now benefit them and and the

the system they're in so so we do

have that idea but we also have this

idea oh

if if you're unhappy you know we're just

gonna

try to soothe you too uh and so

particularly here i'll take pot shots at

my colleagues in psychiatry but a lot of

the medications we give

sometimes those might be necessary but a

lot of those medications are to

um solution

yeah yeah they're they're a band-aid or

they mask you know

we've got these emotions and we don't

know how to handle them so those drugs

will just smush you down here so you

don't have the highs and you don't have

the lows

and it just keeps you in this narrow

band where you're you're not really

alive now again

sometimes it wasn't necessary i'm not

i'm not making any blanket prescriptions

here except i think

we probably are over prescribing those

let me take another example if you will

greg which is suicide

uh we

well it goes deeper so mental health

i say me and my colleagues and i include

myself

in this we made a deal with the devil

when we agreed to medicalize our

profession

in other words we said well we doctors

get

insurance counselors should get

insurance

payments too we need to be paid by

insurance companies

and the deal we made with the devil is

we said okay

if people are coming to us and we want

to get paid

by insurance companies uh

we need then the people that are seeing

us are diseased

so it's called the medical model or the

disease model

but we're automatically pathologizing

people

that do that and a lot of my colleagues

we kind of universally united in hating

insurance companies but i'm like do you

take the money

we take the money so we're complicit in

this system

of pathologizing people that come to see

us and i think it does

tainted and you see that in suicide 1999

if you look at suicide rates they were

declining until 1999.

what happened in 1999 bill clinton had a

national suicide task force

and we put it in hands of the caring

loving therapists

what and that that was the all-time low

and it has not

been as it's gone up since and all this

effort and all this work we've done

uh has actually not made the problem any

better

uh and and i think has it directly made

it worse

it you know it's really hard to prove

and i don't want to oversell that

i suspect though that here's what i

think and again it's hard to prove

uh there's no proof of this there's just

correlation and we know correlation is

not causation but

i think we turned uh what is often an

existential crisis of meaning

into a sickness interesting and you

can't

heal a sickness well you can't heal

an existential crisis by saying you're

sick

because you're not sick you you need

help finding

meaning and purpose in your life but

you're not necessarily

got some mental disorder right you don't

have a chemical imbalance

sometimes you do of course very

generally

but i think what we're again like this

is just my opinion

and the opinion of some others i can

give you some sources if you want

that do agree with me but this is far

from settled question

i think we really have here a crisis of

meaning

or people just don't feel like they feel

like they're a waste of space or they

don't matter

and they're not making a difference and

i think

i mean that's not meaning meaning and

value

yeah i feel like i am acting in the

world in a way that is noticed

and that matters and makes a difference

and you can do that you know some people

do that in a negative way by joining a

gang

or some of these serial these mass

murderers they want their names in the

headlines and so the media is complicit

in that

but there's all kinds of sick ways

people want to get feel meaningful and

important

and the people who can't even do that

will you know the sick ones

some of the sick ones will turn it on

the world i shouldn't say sick i see i'm

buying in the medical model right people

the evil ones will turn it out in the

world and the

the more inward directed ones will just

try to kill themselves

so that i don't think sometimes that is

a disorder

but i think most the time it's not these

are

philosophical religious uh

you know questions that i think

therapists can help with

but sometimes maybe in pathologizing

that and medicalizing that

we might be making it worse because we

say to somebody oh you're sick

and is that really the best thing to say

maybe we should be saying oh

we need to help you find your meaning

and purpose in life i can help you

understand this yeah

but you see insurance companies won't

pay for that yeah well that was you know

what i was just going to say then do do

the

how much do the insurance companies

affect the course of therapy

a lot a lot yeah okay

and we're ethical about it we we find

diagnosis but sure of course

we have our little bible it's called the

diagnostic and statistical manual and

we're in our fifth edition

and if we can find if you can fit one of

those criteria

usually you know there's some at the end

then the insurance company will pay for

yeah uh yeah

and of course that's more and more

centralized into a small committee

that's going to be directing how that

works and

handshaking between the insurance

company and the the experts in

psychology and therapy etc

right right very centralized okay so so

what that does is it builds more

consensus

okay that's why we call it the bible not

ironically but it literally too

yeah exactly exactly okay so i wanted to

bring up this contrast here between your

your comment in your article and uh

natasha helfer's comment here on

shame so you say here

the goal of therapists aligned with this

point of view

isn't to change these behaviors and that

would be

as you put here behaviors that are

manifesting in a pathological sense

um let's see let me back up and make

sure i've got this wrong here

certain practices sexual practices and

other things that some of these

organizations seem to promote

you see the goal of therapists aligned

with this point of view isn't to change

these behaviors

which could be hurting people themselves

but rather to reduce the shame

and increase acceptance right

both among the clients themselves and

society at large which is interesting

because

if that is the goal of the therapist

then natasha helper was following

exactly what that goal is the dual goal

there

which is both with her cl her clients

and society at large

i'll get to that in a minute with her

with some other therapists that signed

on with her

in talking about this social advocacy

but so she's saying look we've got to

reduce the shame that's the primary

thing

reduce the shame very that's what you're

saying that that's what they say right

so he she goes right along with that

here she says i was receiving a flow

she's talking about

as an adolescent when in the church

growing up in the church

and so she says i was receiving a steady

flow of

abstinence-based fear-based and

shame-based sexual education

and here are some of the experiences and

messages i was grappling with

and feeling in constant tension with

and she has several quotes i could pull

here that are are about this

another one here on teens our children

and teens deserve a home

where they are not shamed for their

sexual feelings

thoughts and actions right

how again the the

to me and at least in a gospel sense

if you're removing shame completely but

you know feeling shame yourself and we

might have a uh

a i'll think of the word here in a

minute but

um we might uh be we might have

different ideas of what shame means and

what it is

but if that's the primary focus again

it goes back to what you were saying

about kind of the short-term thing

where i don't need to go through

anything tough and anything that is

going to

be an obstacle for me

the instead of me changing behavior

i need everybody else to change i need

the norms to change

right right because if i feel if i feel

ashamed the norm that's what we need to

get rid of i need to clorox

my environment the problem with that is

then you're not

you're that much more susceptible all

the time

to shame right it's like a germ right if

i'm if i'm

constantly in a purified clorox

environment and i step outside for a

second i'm that much more

susceptible to to the germs isn't that

right right and i make that point

when i say look uh well first of all

natasha is not wrong again

all of our professional associations

have varying

ways we describe that we have an

obligation

to advocate for you know

things that promote our profession and

our best practices

so she's she's again not wrong that she

you know you have an ethical obligation

to do that but where i disagree with her

is and where i was alarmed what really

promoted me to write that article

is for her to say my way is the only way

and i have to tell the church that

they're wrong and

it's only now i'm only following the

canons in my profession when i do that

well like i say she is probably in the

mainstream of at least the sex therapist

i don't know about therapists in general

but uh i i i it is

not congruent with traditional

religion any any of them uh

and so and i think that goes back to

i really feel like my personal religious

belief is i want to be aligned with the

truth you shall know the truth and the

truth shall make you free

but you talked about you use that word

norms again because what natasha is

saying

is look some people can't aren't

you know for whatever reason we won't

judge but

they they can't fit that norm right

they're

they're not we we have this ideal in the

church

and i'll i'll meet her halfway too where

i think we don't always talk about this

in a in the best way i think you pointed

that out too

but where i differ from her is i don't

think we need to get rid of the law of

chastity

in fact i think as a church

the law of chastity is actually one of

our best features

the metoo movement has demonstrated an

elder christopherson talked about this

i think it was october conference when

he said consent alone

is not sufficient to prevent people from

getting hurt

right and we see this in me too and

these women are right oh i was

manipulated into having

sex that i didn't want to have so i

could get a harvey weinstein movie or

because my boss did this well you

consented

right you were over 18 and you consented

what why are you complaining now

well they should complain i i agree with

them

that they they uh they were put in

positions that was unfair

and that were difficult and and that

caused them harm

but what can the world say there that's

better

than our law of chastity they don't dare

say don't be a cad

to the men right and they don't dare say

to the woman

you know don't don't give it up so easy

you see this on

campuses nowadays uh where you know

young women will go to parties

and they'll a guy will hit on them at

the party and want to

have sex with them and she'll turn them

down and

she'll say and they'll they'll call her

the b word

they'll call her an ice queen well

after being called a b word 12 times

you're kind of sick of it and so maybe

they just decide to give in because

they're tired of getting hated on

isn't it really better to have a norm go

back to these norms that says

don't have sex before marriage i think

again this is with my religious hat on

not my therapist hat on

but these are things that therapists

can't answer right

so back to natasha's point uh

and you made this point too in your last

podcast there are ways to address shame

there are ways to talk about chastity

and celibacy

and being single without chucking out

the law of chastity

yeah we could probably teach it better

we could teach it in age-appropriate

ways

we can teach it uh less shame based

but the principles themselves

i believe and i say this as a therapist

and i say it as a

as a member of the church are true

and sound and i have a testimony of them

and i see it in my clients now

again some people in reacting online to

article think i just preach you know we

read we read the scriptures all day

in session and i my clients aren't

interested

in that and they've got their life goals

i work with them within the parameters

they want

sure but i there's nothing i've seen in

the

in the therapy chair that has ever told

oh boy the law of chastity just doesn't

work for those people

i get that they've got their agency and

they want to pursue their life and they

have a right to do that and i

it is not my right as a therapist to

tell them they're doing it wrong and so

i don't

but at the same time i think natasha and

i differ because she sees these people

that have the hard time meeting that

and yes some of them do have an

unhealthy

shame right about this and i say there's

ways we can work on that unhealthy shame

without saying oh porn porn can be okay

sometimes or

it's not that bad or you know uh don't

don't worry about it

there's ethical porn we maybe we want to

go into that or not but i think it's

nonsense but there's this idea of

ethical

porn so you can look at ethical porn and

it can spice up your marriage and

and i just don't agree uh even though

again this is

probably a mainstream belief she's not

she's not

well off what hills are there right

right i get that

but why does it go inside only because

for example let's say i go to a therapy

session

and i'm a member of the church and i

believe in the law of chastity

right what about the norm is not the law

of chastity

so i'm outside the norm so why is there

not an

advocacy to change the other way

what about what about me i mean i'm i'm

outside of that i'm on the fringe as far

sexual activity goes well you clearly

need therapy greg because you have this

internalized shame

from this patriarchal religion that has

taught you to hate your sexuality so

that's interesting because that's that's

where the shame then comes in right it's

brought in then at that point

to say that what i need to do is just

not worry about it right just not have

the shame

right instead of saying here's the

standard let's work on

uh you know if you if again this is your

belief right so we're assuming here

you are a believing latter-day saint

with a test option

this is your own right this isn't your

parents this

isn't inertia this isn't cultural this

is really you you have

you believe this and you want this for

yourself okay so let's grant all that

don't forget any of that because that's

all really key

and sometimes it takes a few sessions to

figure out

you know what people's motivation is but

at that point

i would argue that i am ethically

required to help you find a way and

because i have the cultural competence

and the shared testimony of that

i think a believing latter-day saint

therapist

is uniquely positioned to help somebody

like you if you were looking for therapy

and i i would do harm

if i said you know well greg yeah

you're just you've got a hang up here

you know in the church the church is

wrong or the church is going to change

on this

right oh maybe that's what they say

today but they're going to come around

uh i think that makes you more fragile

and either you're going to

you're going to be harmed by that

therapy uh

and you might leave you probably won't

even tell me you'll probably and by the

way

we can send the link in your piece but

my co-writer

a colleague at public square magazine

christopher cunningham wrote a piece

uh in public square magazine called

health their uh

uh it's uh our latter-day saint

therapist is meeting client expectations

and this was an informal

survey this isn't any kind of

peer-reviewed anything but i still think

it should be a wake-up call for us

lds therapists of the 70 people he got

120 people to respond to his survey

70 of them said they specifically sought

a therapist

that would affirm them in their goals of

staying a church member and they wanted

therapy that would stay within the

boundaries

more or less i mean there's some things

you can maybe negotiate on the fringes

we can talk about some examples that if

you want but basically these are the

boundaries i want

half of them said their lds therapists

did not support them yeah that's

interesting i mean

that's you wake up i said this is

interesting i want to go right to this

because you said

here in one of your paragraphs in that

article he said what too many mental

health professionals don't appreciate

is that religion is every bit a core

identity i think this is

key a core identity as other identities

like race or sexuality can be

different clients are going to

prioritize different aspects of their

identity

and core beliefs it's like look i'm an

lds man i'm coming in here based on this

identity

which is core to me and important to me

it's like if i'm going to go in

and i'm a gay man and i'm going in to a

therapist

talking and they're they're treating me

like i'm completely heterosexual going

along the same lines

with that it doesn't that doesn't work

that's not going to work

so that that's crucial now you said that

a number of them didn't

go along with what did you say go along

with uh

holding up the lds standards right they

these

these people in christopher's survey

half of them said

their lds therapists did not

support them in their goals to say they

undermined them

and the interest why this should be a

wake-up call is they all said

uh they didn't even tell their therapist

they just quit going right so we

we may not even know we're doing this

uh and and is it is let me energy is is

the is the lds therapist

putting those other values up because

because they're basically just putting

up the consensus the bible as you said

whatever that was

an acronym they're putting that up above

the lds

principles of their client

yeah i mean as a therapist i hear other

clients sometimes say their therapist

told them such and such and

i always say if a wife says well my

husband's therapist came back and said

it's okay to do this and that i said

call that therapist up and make an

appointment with her or him

and hear it from the horse's mouth

because people don't always report

accurately so i want to cut my

colleagues some slack here

but that's why i say it should just be a

wake-up call but it does appear

that a lot of us are not doing our job

because we all believe this is not a

controversy when we all believe in

self-determination

we all believe that we are supposed to

help our clients achieve their their

goals

and it seems like we're undermining that

in some of us are undermining that

sometimes and we're doing harm instead

of helping our clients

and that should be really sobering and

these are lds therapists right greg

yeah i mean that's i mean for me or my

family that would be the number one

issue right as far as choosing choosing

a therapist

that's going to be number one what what

is that divergence just going to grow

i think i don't know i i mean

i i'm i'm gonna talk to some colleagues

and see

if we can push back but you know it

takes a lot of

uh effort and research and can we even

get published

can we lay the groundwork for this

counter narrative

i i haven't given up but but i have to

tell you i'm not

very optimistic either i mean it just

seems like

you know we haven't created a new norm

we've just dissolved existing norms

right so

asex talks about now they talk about

polyamory

or consensual non-monogamy they talk

about bdsm and kink

it's adultery uh yeah

they talk about these things and there's

healthy ways and there's unhealthy ways

to do it

it's back to consent isn't it yeah it's

like that's the issue

that's the only issue right and it is

not

again in my religious opinion it's not

sufficient but where's the new norm

the new norm is this fuzzy well is it

healthy this is more than your audience

wants to know

but they used to change it from safe

there used to be this acronym and it was

safe

uh bdsm and kink and they changed that

from safe to risk aware

consensual kink it's called rack r-a-c-k

don't don't google it

but just trust me risk aware consensual

kink and what it means is

you might get hurt i i won't say okay

far enough we're good uh the new rule is

so long as your partner is aware

of the risks right where consensual kink

if they're aware of the risks and it's

consensual

it's okay this is just i i can't

imagine some of these things ever being

okay again morally

speaking from my point of view but they

what's happened is we don't have a norm

even though i think empirically

uh a child raised by its

a biological mother and father who are

married and committed to each other

is by far the best thing for society and

we've got about 30 000 studies

that say family structure matters and

that's the best in general

family structure there's always

exceptions and the family proclamation

talks about that right individual

adaptation

but that should be in my opinion the

norm

but that is see we have a totally

different idea my

biggest it's not the norm the ideal has

got to stay

i mean that's again my lds perspective

on that isn't it and i'm with you and

that's right even if it's not the norm

you've got to you've got to stick with

the ideal

we've got to there charles murray wrote

a book a few years ago called coming

apart

and he talks about how the elites

actually live very conservative lives

they marry heterosexually they stay

married

mostly uh you know this is average he

says he wishes they would preach

what they practice because you know

if if madonna has five husbands and

three kids by that

her kids are probably still okay because

they've got tutors they've got all this

money they've got all this stuff

so madonna can kind of live that way

and her kids would probably be okay even

though i think they'd be better

with the father you know in the home

consistently but but they'll probably be

okay

but some poor single woman

uh you know living in a urban area

she follows madonna's example she her

kids are going to pay the price

and they're the ones that that are going

to impact by the lack of these norms

so again this isn't this isn't the

therapist job necessarily to do but but

the therapists do see

the effect and the fallout of this we do

see

i see the impact of people not

following that standard so

what what's our new norm what is it can

if we talk about it

you know so my big beef with asic is

they have elevated

sexual fulfillment to the be all end-all

that is

and i'm i'm very i believe i'm very pro

i think our theology's

sex positive and i think we're created

as sexual beings and

and there's wonderful that but but

there's a kind of inversion that comes

you know

seek ye first the kingdom of god well

if we seek first our sexual fulfillment

then

we might not make the kingdom of god

again this is a religious thing but

but a lot of sex therapists think this

is the be all end-all

i have a friend who's uh he's got uh

same-sex attraction

and he's single and he's planning on

keeping church standards and it really

irritates him when people pat him on the

head and say you poor boy

he's not a boy he's a he's an adult but

you poor young man

uh you you're in this oppressive church

and you're you're not going to be

sexually fulfilled

and he says who would presume to say

that to me

if i was wearing saffron robes and a

shaved head and i was in tibet

you wouldn't ever presume interesting

food on their culture

and but if suddenly it's okay for you to

denigrate

my life choice that is a very spiritual

and sacred

thing for me yeah that's an interesting

comparison

two things i wanted to finish up on here

unless you've got something else to

to bring up that you thought was

important is it just two questions

what should an lds therapist be doing

to parse this out right actively

and secondly what does an lds

parent especially or individual even

need to do to make sure that they're

finding the right therapist

great questions uh first of all

personally you know back to what's going

to happen

uh i i i go back to what neil maxwell

said

where you know we we have to face

zion even if even if we have to live in

the world

we have to uphold zion and that may mean

there might come a time where i can't

practice my profession and be congruent

with my religious beliefs

and so do i serve mammon in the form of

the aamft the american association of

marriage and family therapists

or doppel the occupational licensing

board here in utah

or do i follow my religion so far i feel

like i

i can do that but uh if

if this dominant world view wins and

imposes

this i may not be able to and i know

which one i'll choose at that point

uh but there's a lot of my colleagues

who are concerned about this and they're

they're afraid and i don't blame them so

uh that's what so what

what lds what i would say what lds

therapists have to ask themselves is

where do i stand

and can i uh

in good conscience uphold

church teachings with with important

caveat with my lds clients

right my believing lds clients that want

want to pursue that can i in good

conscience encourage that

and i'm afraid too many of my colleagues

and i wonder about the ones that signed

the letter

i'm worried if they can do that and if

they can't then i don't know that they

have the cultural competence to treat

that population

you know if there's i don't have any

doubt natasha is a good therapist i know

people that's here and they like i'm

sure she's done a lot of good i don't

doubt that at all

but i would not refer somebody to her

who had this faith

reconciliation confidence and maybe

she's good at that too but

just based on her public comments i

don't see it

so uh that's that's where i'd say can

you really

support someone that wants to do it

because

there are therapists lds therapists

every day saying

men with same sex attraction who are

married to a woman oh

you know you'll never be happy that way

you need to experiment with sex with men

and see if you like that better or a

single man again who has a testimony and

wants to stay true to the church

no you should just leave the church and

and try that if

or oh hang on and just do what you want

and be as active as you can but

but date man and have be sexually active

with

with men or women and just hope the

church changes right i think that sets

people up for failure

because i don't think the church is

going to change but even if it does

eventually which again i totally

disagree with every time

there's a pro-family a pro-traditional

family comment or talk or article in the

end sign

these people are shattered again it

doesn't we need to help people

deal with the world that's a great point

that that that right there is a great

point because that's just going to bring

on more shame

yeah that's right right there right

so it almost seems like there's got to

be a deeper stronger message for that

though

than maybe we're sometimes getting and

i'm not talking about the brethren or

anything i'm just talking about as a

culture

and we have screwed up ideas about

marriage about family about our

goals and all these play into it by we i

mean the larger culture here we always

beat up on lds culture and

sometimes it deserves it but the larger

culture

is even more screwed up though its

ideals about love

and marriage and romance and sex are

very unhealthy

maybe we could have a whole episode

where i yell about the bachelor

right i think that's what it teaches

that would be

all you and enemy i've never seen it so

i haven't either

my daughter could tell me every episode

although i bet

but that is messed up that that is not a

way to find

a good mate so so i guess i'd say to

answer your second question

uh level with your therapist first of

all don't be afraid to fire your

therapist

i tell my clients that too i i

don't feel loyalty to me be a loyalty to

your growth and your healing

and even if i was the best therapist in

the world and i'm not natasha would

probably tell you that i'm not too

uh but even if i were it's not always a

good fit

and that matters that is in fact the

most important thing one of the

things that i am confident in is the

therapeutic alliance the relationship

between therapists and client

is the most important aspect more than

any theory or mortality or practice

that connection with your therapist is

important if you're not feeling if

you're not getting it or if you're not

growing or you've outgrown them

uh fire them uh don't feel bad about

that at all we all

i i want to say this i i i've criticized

my colleagues but i think i can

confidently say

we all want you to get better and we

won't feel bad if you feel like you can

get better

healing elsewhere and so likewise when

you're hiring us when you're doing a job

interview in our first session

say just what what you said can you

support me these are my goals i need a

therapist to support me

can you really do that do you believe in

me and do you believe in these

principles

enough to help me yeah

well i appreciate that i i i

you're a little more optimistic than i

am on this too

i hope i can hope i can help things go

well but but in terms of behavioral

sciences or science as a whole or

the humanities anything coming out of

there it just it worries me because it's

just

there's so much divergence now i don't

know that it can be pulled back i don't

know that it can be brought back

together and

and uh you know you've got those that

are in the consensus in those

disciplines

that are now looking across a larger

chasm over to the lds church for example

that chasm is not

shrinking it's growing and so

i i don't know i i hope things work out

and i hope there's going to be paths

where lds therapists are going to be

able to maneuver between those two and

and uh hang on to both sides of that

chasm and

i i hope i can be a positive uh

contributor to that and so maybe we'll

have more to say

but but your your diagnosis is

not wrong i hope your prognosis is okay

great jeff thanks so much really

appreciate your time

and uh we'll do it again okay

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LDS Doctrine and Therapy Are On A Collision Course

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