Just be a Traditional Woman - $h*t Therapists Say

Alicia, how would you handle a sexist, misogynistic therapist who says the solution is for you to be more like a

traditional

housewife? She would pick me up and walk out of her office less violently than I expected, but probably a healthier, repaired, lighter solution, welcome to the fuck. therapist tell where we ask you in our community what is the worst advice you have received from a therapist and then we see if we can fix things between you and the whole notion of therapy from a therapist to the masses. I'm so sorry, in this video we have a number of people responding with some misogynistic sexist nonsense, yeah, so let's dig into this question that was submitted that since I stayed home, I have to cater to my husband's every whim and Anticipate his needs and meet them before he can ask you.

The exact words were: You should be able to come home, sit down, and not have to move for the rest of the night, not even to get a glass of water, because you should have known that by now. he needed it and he got it, okay, before this is funny, before I share my thoughts as a therapist. I

just

want to hear your thoughts as a

woman

because a therapist said this, yeah, so I predominantly have personality traits that are seen. You are more masculine and have personality traits that are seen as more feminine and that doesn't mean you look feminine.

I look like M, no, but people get to know us and say, oh yeah, our friends think it's funny. um, because we have complete gender role changes if something needs to be fixed, I fix it if someone needs to be heard, you listen to them, we're both growing in our capabilities in different areas, but you know, if there's a problem at home or in the car. a business problem like I deal with it if there's a person problem, I deal with it, yes, yes, and so place that level of judgment on someone's gender after they've grown up and I would say in the culture in which I have grown up. in it it's not particularly stifling for women um there are definitely countries that I've traveled to that are much more stifling um but having grown up in a culture where I heard all kinds of shoulds and assumptions for some of them from my own parents who think I'm too masculine and I've been given books on how to be less me and having to face that right to help me help me face that in a healthy way and say hey, no, this.

It's who I am and these are my strengths and there's nothing wrong with that, but once again you have this person who is in a position of authority, you go to them for help and they say and do things to you that are not helpful. as a therapist. this and I believe that you have no right to impose your values ​​or beliefs on the person in front of you with that in mind. I wanna explore some space when ideologies collide from my favorite show Firefly uh in this episode of this futuristic show 500 years in the future there's a crew, they're in space, they do heists and then sometimes they're the good guys, that It's the show, but the captain has space cowboys, they're space cowboys, they're space outlaws and the captain. has accidentally married this really healthy virtuous

traditional

christian

woman

, she asked him to dance, he danced with her and then they got married, that's what happened and he's trying to let her go easy, uh and this is what Happ CU him.

He, he doesn't want to get married, I'm so confused because he

just

met her and wasn't planning on getting married, it was just suddenly, dancing, they got married like he didn't know she got married, it was a total thing. Well, all of them, this was not a robbery, they helped this group of Christians and then the woman came and gave him wine to drink and put a crown on his head and then she asked him and then she asked him to dance and they danced. and according to the Traditions of the People, look, and he thought he was just at a bonfire and a pretty girl asked him to dance, he understood, he understood, then it was a cultural misunderstanding, it was a cultural misunderstanding, they did some kind of ritual that then it meant with that community they were married, he had no idea, so now she's stowing away on the ship and everyone on the ship says they can't sleep with her and he says, "I'm not going to sleep with her, this wasn't a marriage". that I ever chose um and the pilot and the pilot's wife, which is the pilot is like me and the wife is like you come in, yeah, and this is a trade, okay and now I'll make sense.

I'm excited to see the clip, thank you. something smells good having a little sepher C well, saff insisted on you know I didn't want to make her feel tasty is there more where that came from? I didn't think about making enough for your friends, but everything is arranged. If you want to cook for your husband, isn't it picturesque? I'm just not hungry, are you enjoying yours? Newby, a little slave, wanted to prepare dinner for me. At least she's not crying. Maybe if she really did something cool. picturesque arch remember that sex we were planning to have again you know everyone is making a big deal out of it.

I'd appreciate it if one person on this ship didn't assume I'm a lewd villain at home, no one says that sir, yes we do. We pretty much just give each other meaningful glances and laugh incessantly, it's cider at a stretch, mmm, I'll bring you a refill. P, that's for me to do, you know, you wouldn't be lying about your cooking if I hadn't already eaten you. I don't want to finish, no, I just have things to do with the Captain, but the truth is that it is a good meal, thank you. Do you need anything else?

No, no, you just have something to eat yourself and, uh, I'm going to go, Captain, yeah. You're done with dinner, would you like me to wash your feet? The first time I saw him, he was looking at her and then looking at her friends and then he just walked away without answering. I saw it, I repeat it like five times and I laugh a lot. Well, there are some things that we saw in this clip that I want to address, yes, in a moment, but first we have one more stupid thing that a therapist said and then we'll put it all together, so I was living with a boyfriend for the first time. and I was experiencing some conflict because of the dichotomy between traditional gender roles and how I really wanted to build our dynamic as a couple.

When I found out that my therapist was extremely conservative and yelled at me, well, why aren't you traditional? That's the way. the

therapists

in both cases are supposed to be breaking some of the cardinal rules of therapy, the rules of ethics that we are all subject to first is telling the client what to do by shooting the client, many people go to therapy Thinking well, the therapist will clarify and tell me what to do, it's not really good therapy because if a therapist tells you what to do, that's coming from where he's coming from, not where you're coming from, that's all. about your values, which is the second thing, we don't impose our values ​​on people, the main purpose of therapy is to give you tools that you otherwise wouldn't have had, it's to help you explore paths that you otherwise wouldn't have explored or thought about. things from start to finish in ways that you are struggling to do well for yourself and I have learned all these rules and ethics of therapy from having a relationship with you like those RAs are not things that I necessarily knew before, so when you explained this to me I said , oh, this makes a lot of sense and the average person won't necessarily know this and you said something interesting like, yeah, I might have someone you know sitting in front of me. that has drastically different values ​​than mine and if cognitively I know that I can't support them in their values, then I need to refer them to another therapist who isn't expected to just be superum and completely let go of his biases.

A therapist must be aware of his own biases. Yes, one of my teachers in school told me, "no therapist is truly objective and when you believe in your objective you are blinding yourself to how your biases are filtering through." Yes, it is much better to be honest. about who you are and what you value and then see if the client wants to work with you, so up to this point, the first lesbian couple I worked with I was their third therapist and the two

therapists

they had seen before were equally atrocious in the opposite. instructions and I share this story with your permission without any identifying information, but the couple, one of them came from a deeply traditional religious background, the other not, the one who was having difficulty reconciling the beliefs they were raised with with the love.

They had for the person next to them, so they went to a therapist and that therapist told them: well, the problem is that you are living in sin, you need to break up and repent and that did nothing, that is not therapy, yeah, then they went to another. The therapist and that therapist said the problem is your oppressive religion. You just need to leave it behind and love your partner. Depending on who you are, one or the other of those approaches may be more favorable to you, but if so, that's what you value. The fact is, as a therapist, I found both equally abhorrent because who a person loves and what or how they believe is deeply personal to them, it is not up to a therapist to dictate or tell them what to do to better understand their values. their conflicts and ask them questions that make them think about what they really want, what they really believe and let the chips fall where they will with whatever they choose because what none of those therapists did was ask them about their journey and help them.

Explore your options and they said well, here's the problem, yeah, and that's some real bullshit therapy, what am I paying you for? So let's go back to traditional gender rules. It's not about what works for me as a therapist, it should work for everyone, it's about what you value and who you are, back up because these questions are about romantic relationships, true, but it's true on a friendship level, but not as up close, or at the parent-child level or in any relationship, but the question is how to have a healthy relationship. successful H happy marriage or partnership with someone and I would say that is about knowing your needs and being able to communicate your needs and knowing your partner's needs and then being able to communicate your needs and then building a bridge between the two well and doing I'm sure those things line up well because we have a close couple of friends of ours who have a very traditional marriage based on very traditional gender roles.

You know, she serves him the food, puts it on a plate and takes it to him. drink his glass of water you know he's going to work he comes home once he's home it's not like he's not like he's absent but she she takes care of him she takes care of him she takes care of him she provides she takes care of him home, yes, and that works for both of them, it is a dynamic that they enjoy, it would be a mistake to call it oppressive, yes, because it is what they both choose and what they both want, yes, of course, yes, and although we are close friends For them, our relationship It's never looked like that, no, and it would never look like that because that doesn't fit any of our needs well, so in therapy again what works for the person in front of you.

And in life, how do we honor the journeys, values, and choices of the people around us? Because your decisions will not be ours and we must have the humility to say that just because something works for me does not mean it is the way it is supposed to be, yes it means this is the path I am comfortable with and I don't want to. get off on a tangent here, but I often say that we apply moral judgments to non-moral issues and, to the extent possible, how this is right and wrong, and in the conversation about gender roles and the right and wrong of men gender roles, people often make that a moral issue, yeah, in a way that I think those two therapists did when it's not a moral issue, right?

It's what works for you, yes, and your needs as a person, because who you are and how you present yourself in the world is wonderful and beautiful, and the way that becomes more wonderful and beautiful is when you can do that in a partnership that Supports you yes for Wash and Zoe the Firefly couple who were non-traditional yes Dynamic works for them and Saffron could be with someone who is more traditional and that relationship would work for her I mean if you've seen the episode . some there are other things, but who is saffre presented to? So our big takeaways from this, what do you think about the advice these therapists gave and our counter-advice?

If you've received terrible advice from a therapist, let us know in the comments below and we'll see what we can do to fix things until next time people keep shining, we need your light.