I was watching a video of deprogrammer Dr. Steven Hassan who spent about 2.5 years in the Moonies back in the mid-70s from the age of 19 to 21. He was speaking about his experience of being so totally brainwashed by the group and how he finally made his way out of it. So happened it was being in a terrible automobile crash and falling asleep at the wheel due to forced sleep deprivation that got him away from the Moonies for a couple of weeks allowing his family to step in to get him deprogrammed.

We are living in a time when there are many people out there brainwashing us – hypnotizing us – yes I used that word – in negative ways because we allow our minds to be accessed by them. We listen to the negativity all around us, to people who are in power constantly lying about what is going on forcing our brains into a state of believing that which is and never will be real through their constant repetition.

I worry in these days of AI that false statements being placed in someone’s voice that one never said, false visual presentations again pretending to be something that isn’t will be creating a world that is so corrupted by the unreal that we humans will not be able to discern what is real and what is not. For this reason, I do not use AI, have no interest in it, and will probably lose some business as a result of it. However, I would prefer to use my own words to state my own truths than rely on something that has nothing to do with me helping me to write whatever I may be putting out there into the world.

We need to ask ourselves what it is that we are doing with our lives as Steven asked himself as he became a psychologist to help those in the profession better understand the means that were used to bring people into these cults.

I know for myself, having gone through the mental and physical health issues of my younger years, that do not use that which I learned from the healing process to help others would be a waste of all that I had been through.

Life is short. We all have our own journey to live and with that journey, there is something we have to offer that is larger than ourselves to make the world better for having been here.

My question to you is simply this: What are you doing with your life that is of value to others based on that which you learned the hard way – by having to live through it all to receive your learning?

This was a question that was asked on Quora and this is how I answered it:

You know the reason that I never pursued getting a license to practice mental health, was because of the co-dependent manner in which too many therapists operated.

There is no reason for people to feel compelled. to continue with therapy as a life-long pursuit unless someone has an illness that requires it such as experiencing psychotic features or needing someone to make sure their medications are still doing the job and not causing physiological harm over long-term use. Therapy is supposed to help you to learn how to take care of yourself when life’s situations arise.

However, it seems like Americans feel the need to always have someone with whom to put their trust because they can’t seem to be the type of people that can make their own decisions, too many things triggering them (including too many in the health care field) and too many that just can’t give up the old stories they tell themselves about their past. By the way, I have the same issue with life, health, and business coaches that expect their clients to forever renew their programs.

Let me tell you something: One can NEVER have a ‘present’ or create their future the way they want. it if they are constantly dragging. the problems of their past into their present.

I am a hypnotist and Master Practioner of Neuro-Linguistic programming having found these modalities after being not just underwhelmed but also very upset with the way my mental health clients were treated by my bosses in the supported housing programs I worked at as an unlicensed counselor back in the early 1990s. I wanted a holistic way to help my clients get past their past and live their lives based on what they wanted their lives to become. I knew this was possible because I had done it myself – but even more so, if you look at the people who have had to leave their countries because of war, famine, or political strife, with nothing on them but the clothes on their backs and somehow in a foreign country they have created businesses and become successful. One needs to ask why it is that some are capable of doing this, and others never can see an end to endless support from another.

I was in therapy for 14 years overmedicated to the point where my kidneys started slowing down, and that is when I found the hypnotic arts thank God I did because now my life is based on being healthy and flowing in the directions I want it to be – instead of taking toxic medication and constantly having to see a shrink. No thanks – independence is a much better way to live and that is what I want for all my clients they can certainly do as you are doing seeing their psychologist, psychiatrist, mental health counselor – whomever for the rest of their days because to me that isn’t a life, it is a co-dependence and an unhealthy one at that.

My clients do call for ‘tune-ups’ when they need them and that is usually 1 session because that is all they need to clear out whatever was bothering them. However, my goal is to give them the tools and techniques so they can take care of themselves as their live into their purpose on this planet as we all have one if we choose to focus on that instead of what is wrong with us and our lives.

Thanks for the question.

This was a question that a person on Quora asked with which many clients will identify. Here is how I answered it:

This is an excellent question because there are many clients/patients who do feel uncomfortable talking about their thoughts and feelings. Some of these people are not uncomfortable speaking about their issues but are cut off from their thoughts and feelings.

Having worked with many people over the decades I have been in mental health I find it can be helpful for such clients to keep a journal and write down their thoughts and feelings and then share them with their therapist. In this way one can get out what is going on inside them in a way that is less uncomfortable and still receive guidance around those areas that require it – the reason one would employ a therapist to work with one.

There are some people who are cut off from their thoughts and feelings and writing can be one way to access them so long as the writing is done without thinking, just allowing the thoughts to flow across the page as they come out allowing the content to show itself after some time of writing.

I know that when I have had certain clients who were given the chance to just write about their thoughts and feelings it was amazing how much content they were able to come up with making their sessions a lot more productive – transformative in many cases.

Thanks again for this question on behalf of those who are dealing with the same issues.

Let us understand what a psychiatrist is there to help you do:

Generally, there are 3 potential roles that psychiatrists can have in their relationship with a patient.

1) Diagnose the patient to help the patient to understand what the problem is and therefore to have a method of treatment based on the diagnosis. The issues here are many in that there are too many overlapping diagnoses such as those with bipolar 1 which included psychotic features being confused with schizophrenia which are two totally different illnesses as an example. Another would be the confusion of one with Borderline Personality Disorder with  Bipolar because of the mood dysregulation, however, once again there are many differences between the two which would make the differences obvious to one who is skilled in diagnostics, but sadly this is not the case given the many clients I have seen who have been misdiagnosed usually with illnesses they never had.

2) Medication Evaluation and Medication Monitoring to make sure that the medications that one is placed on are doing the job because over time medications can become ineffective. Or, one can be overmedicated which happens in too many cases from my experience where one is experiencing many negative side-effects which can disturb one’s quality of life or worse lead to toxicity because of the damage these harsh drugs can do over time to the patient’s body.

3) Therapy which is really the best because the same person who is monitoring your medication is also helping one to understand how to better interact first with themselves such as building up confidence and self-love and then with others by learning healthier ways to communicate their needs and wants. However, this also can become difficult because sometimes the psychiatrist will tell the patient things that the patient does not want to acknowledge which need to be acknowledged to be able to grow such as how certain defense mechanisms are not helping them and instead harming them in their interactions with others. Other times while giving therapy a psychiatrists may tell a patient what they will never be able to accomplish because of the diagnosis given. However, this is NOT a viable thing to be stated because from my personal experience as well as those of many of my clients who have been able to clear the root causes of their problems have been able to go on to do incredible things with their lives. The other real problem that many in therapy run into is being told what they think and what they feel as if the therapist has a way to enter their patient’s mind to know these things. Obviously, they have no way of knowing either of these things so it would be best if they asked if they may be thinking or feeling these things if the therapist believes these may be on the patient’s mind. 

This was a question by a person on Quora which I found to be rather important. Here is how I answered it: 

This is an excellent question. Thanks for asking it!

1. After 30 years in the world of mental health, I can tell you that the most important thing for clients to avoid is using their mental health diagnosis as a reason for not being able to do those things that one needs to do to take care of one’s self. For example: There are too many people out there claiming to have to ADD/ADHD stating that it is impossible for them to concentrate on many things, however, they have the deep concentration for those things they most enjoy. Well, I have news for these folks: If you can concentrate on one thing, you have the ability to concentrate. So, find a reason to concentrate on those things you would prefer to ignore and you have overcome your problem! I have helped many of my hypnosis clients do just that over the 20+ years I have been a hypnotist.

2. Never allow another to use your diagnosis against you in any way. They are not licensed to use these medical terms so they have no idea what they are speaking about in the first place. People do this to undermine you, so never allow it. If someone is using such terms with you, call them out on it asking them when you employed them to be your mental health professional. The answer would be that you didn’t. Next, tell them that if they have any concerns about you to tell you what they have observed behaviorally. In that way, they can inform you of their concerns without overrunning your boundaries.

3. Never argue for your illness and the dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors that encompass them. Your therapist is there to help you to understand why they are there and give you strategies to overcome them. And, yes there may be some suggestions that are scary to you, and you still need to assess them and most probably do them so you can overcome the difficulties that you have been experiencing.

4. Never allow your therapist to tell you how you are thinking or feeling. They have no way to know and it is a boundary break that makes most clients feel poorly about their therapist. If this happens to you have a frank conversation telling your therapist that they overran your boundary and that from then on they need to confirm what they feel may be going on inside your mind instead of stating it as fact.

5. Every therapist who is worth working with is never going to take anything you say personally. They realize that clients get frustrated and can say some pretty mean things as a result. However, there are times when a client is out of order in making these statements and needs to be called on them to learn how to better communicate. Because it is only to the degree that a client can communicate their thoughts and feelings effectively with their therapist that they will be able to carry those skills out into their world with the people with whom they need to interact.

6. Keeping information regarding how you are feeling or something that you did that you do not feel comfortable sharing. The therapist is not a mind reader and as such can only help you to the degree that you are honest about the events that you need to process during your sessions. If you withhold information because you are embarrassed or worse because you do not trust your therapist to keep your confidentiality, it is time for you to seek out a therapist with who you feel safe sharing everything that you need for your healing to take place.

7. Your therapist is there to help you and keep you safe, so you need to trust that the therapist has your best interest at heart. If you are a person who has difficulty with trust issues because of your history, this is the foundation of the work that you need to do with your therapist, to feel safe disclosing what you need to for your therapist to facilitate your healing because only you can heal yourself.

8. The amount of healing that you receive is in direct proportion to the amount of effort you put into your healing journey. If a client is full of reasons, rationalizations, and excuses, the amount of healing possible is close to zero. Therapy requires the client to be an active participant in the therapy which means bringing up those issues that need bringing up, listening to the therapist, and assessing if the ideas are given work for you and if so implementing them. If not, discuss with your therapist why you feel that the idea is not something you feel will help you out. following through on the homework given. Mainly it takes an active participant in the therapy to gain the positive changes one has employed the therapist to bring into being.

9. Medication may help to alleviate some of the symptoms, but it is never going to help you to heal the foundational causes for your symptoms. It is much better to go without medication and learn how to self-regulate your feelings and thoughts through the process that therapy. The only exception to that rule would be if one has psychotic features that need to be controlled.

10. Therapy can be a great avenue to learn more about who you are, what your values are, and how you can best contribute to this world. However, it takes time and commitment to allow this to happen.

I could probably come up with many more areas that a therapist would want their client to know, but this is a fairly comprehensive list of the most important ones that I speak to my clients about not during their sessions, but before I even decide to take them on as a client. Because I choose to work with those clients that are committed to doing whatever it takes to heal without the need to blame the world for their problems. Every person on this planet has had challenges, some more intense than others, and yet some of those who had the most to overcome did so including a client of mine who had her first baby at the age of 14 and a second at the age of 16 both with abusive partners, raising those kids on her own and becoming a PH.D. tenured professor at not 1 but 2 ivy league schools.

I had another client who had major stomach pain that the great doctors and psychiatrists at Massachusetts General Hospital could not help her relieve, she was in a dysfunctional relationship with her partner who was able to overcome the pain and complete her Doctorate in Education while dropping the 50 pounds she gained after being bedridden for the 5 years previous to our working together.

11. It is the client’s mindset being focused on healing that gains them the healing and a much better quality of life which is as true for most physical health issues as well as mental health issues.

Thanks again for this most important and original question never saw it or one related to it in the 5+ years I have been answering questions on Quora.