Selects: How Conversion Therapy Doesn't Work

In The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, child psychiatrist Bruce Perry describes a series of child abuse and neglect cases to illustrate how trauma impacts the developing brain and explain how he and his colleagues established a more effective therapy model for traumatized children.

In our guide, we’ll explain the psychiatric principles that Perry discovered during his years of working with traumatized children, including the stress response, the effects of trauma in infancy versus trauma at a later age, dissociation in response to trauma, and the role that relationships play in the treatment of traumatized children. We’ll also look at specific case studies that contributed to Perry’s Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics. Our commentary explores research supporting and expanding on Perry’s ideas, as well as scientific and social context on how trauma can manifest and the nuances of treatment.

Trauma can stem from abuse to a severe car accident to wartime combat—and cause a lifetime of flashbacks, nightmares, isolation, insomnia, hypervigilance, and rage. In The Body Keeps the Score, the author explores how diagnosing and treating trauma has evolved as new technologies, research, and fields of science emerged.

Trauma’s impact is not only mental, emotional, and neurological, but also physiological: Trauma rewires the brain to put people in a constant state of stress or numbness, leading to a host of physical problems.

In this summary, you’ll learn:

• Why trauma survivors feel like their trauma is never-ending
• How flashbacks make parts of the brain shut down and others to go into overdrive
• Why some trauma survivors can’t recognize themselves in the mirror
• How activities like choral singing, yoga, and theater can be therapeutic

Following the 2016 US presidential election, pundits argued that the 81% of evangelical Christians who voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton viewed him as the lesser of two evils. But, according to historian Kristin Du Mez, this explanation is misguided. In Jesus and John Wayne (2020), she argues that evangelicals endorsed Trump because he was the paradigm of militant masculinity that became orthodox among evangelicals in the last century.

In this guide, we’ve organized Du Mez’s analysis into four historical eras of evangelical masculinity. We’ll discuss: how the first and second World Wars caused evangelicals to shift toward a militant view of masculinity; how the Vietnam War and the feminist movement entrenched this view of masculinity in the ’60s and ’70s; how the lack of a military opponent in the ’90s caused this view to soften; and, finally, how the impact of 9/11 and the Obama presidency created a sense of embattlement that led evangelicals to support Trump in 2020.

In The Madness of Crowds, Douglas Murray argues that Western society is consumed by an ideology that’s obsessed with social justice and identity politics. This ideology insists that certain groups (notably women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals) endure widespread prejudice and oppression, and that they should therefore receive sensitivity, accommodations, and apologetic behavior from the social majority. Murray believes this ideology is hard to challenge without suffering public ridicule and shaming.

Ultimately, Murray argues that we need to combat this ideology, restore constructive opportunities for civic disagreement, and depoliticize our personal identities. Otherwise, our society could become even more fragmented and chaotic, and conceivably violent.

In this guide, we’ll examine the development of this harmful ideology, its effects, and its internal contradictions. We’ll also explore ways to detoxify society and reduce the influence of this ideology. In our commentary, we’ll compare Murray’s ideas to those in other books that discuss wokeism, intersectionality, and identity politics, such as The Coddling of the American Mind and American Marxism.

In The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, child psychiatrist Bruce Perry describes a series of child abuse and neglect cases to illustrate how trauma impacts the developing brain and explain how he and his colleagues established a more effective therapy model for traumatized children.

In our guide, we’ll explain the psychiatric principles that Perry discovered during his years of working with traumatized children, including the stress response, the effects of trauma in infancy versus trauma at a later age, dissociation in response to trauma, and the role that relationships play in the treatment of traumatized children. We’ll also look at specific case studies that contributed to Perry’s Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics. Our commentary explores research supporting and expanding on Perry’s ideas, as well as scientific and social context on how trauma can manifest and the nuances of treatment.

In The Madness of Crowds, Douglas Murray argues that Western society is consumed by an ideology that’s obsessed with social justice and identity politics. This ideology insists that certain groups (notably women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals) endure widespread prejudice and oppression, and that they should therefore receive sensitivity, accommodations, and apologetic behavior from the social majority. Murray believes this ideology is hard to challenge without suffering public ridicule and shaming.

Ultimately, Murray argues that we need to combat this ideology, restore constructive opportunities for civic disagreement, and depoliticize our personal identities. Otherwise, our society could become even more fragmented and chaotic, and conceivably violent.

In this guide, we’ll examine the development of this harmful ideology, its effects, and its internal contradictions. We’ll also explore ways to detoxify society and reduce the influence of this ideology. In our commentary, we’ll compare Murray’s ideas to those in other books that discuss wokeism, intersectionality, and identity politics, such as The Coddling of the American Mind and American Marxism.

In The Madness of Crowds, Douglas Murray argues that Western society is consumed by an ideology that’s obsessed with social justice and identity politics. This ideology insists that certain groups (notably women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals) endure widespread prejudice and oppression, and that they should therefore receive sensitivity, accommodations, and apologetic behavior from the social majority. Murray believes this ideology is hard to challenge without suffering public ridicule and shaming.

Ultimately, Murray argues that we need to combat this ideology, restore constructive opportunities for civic disagreement, and depoliticize our personal identities. Otherwise, our society could become even more fragmented and chaotic, and conceivably violent.

In this guide, we’ll examine the development of this harmful ideology, its effects, and its internal contradictions. We’ll also explore ways to detoxify society and reduce the influence of this ideology. In our commentary, we’ll compare Murray’s ideas to those in other books that discuss wokeism, intersectionality, and identity politics, such as The Coddling of the American Mind and American Marxism.

Can mental health treatments ever be harmful for children? In Bad Therapy, journalist Abigail Shrier argues yes, stating that we’re too quick to medicalize normal childhood struggles in today’s society. She says that while some children genuinely need professional treatment, using therapy and medication when it isn’t necessary prevents young people from developing the skills they need for adulthood. Shrier suggests that instead of rushing to therapy, parents should seek expert intervention less often and give their kids more independence and opportunities to develop resilience.

In this guide, we’ll lay out Shrier’s argument for why mental health treatments aren’t helping young people. We’ll then discuss how well-intentioned interventions by parents, schools, and mental health professionals can damage youth mental health. Lastly, we’ll compare Shrier’s recommendations for raising resilient children with those of psychologists and mental health experts.

In The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, child psychiatrist Bruce Perry describes a series of child abuse and neglect cases to illustrate how trauma impacts the developing brain and explain how he and his colleagues established a more effective therapy model for traumatized children.

In our guide, we’ll explain the psychiatric principles that Perry discovered during his years of working with traumatized children, including the stress response, the effects of trauma in infancy versus trauma at a later age, dissociation in response to trauma, and the role that relationships play in the treatment of traumatized children. We’ll also look at specific case studies that contributed to Perry’s Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics. Our commentary explores research supporting and expanding on Perry’s ideas, as well as scientific and social context on how trauma can manifest and the nuances of treatment.

Gender-affirming care for children has been a topic of heated debate in the last few years, with lawsuits and laws ongoing in the US and UK. But what is gender-affirming care, exactly? How does it work? And why might someone want it?