Navigating Incel Culture: Therapy Approaches for Manosphere Clients
Curt and Katie respond to all the discussions that popped up about the Netflix series Adolescence and its portrayal of a 13-year-old boy accused of murder. We chat about the complexities of working with clients labeled as “incels.” We also explore the importance of understanding the impact of that label (especially when clients are not self-identified as “incels”), internet culture – particularly the manosphere, and the challenges therapists can face when working with clients holding these beliefs.
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Transcript
Show notes are created in collaboration with otter.ai and ChatGPT.
In this podcast episode we discuss working with clients labeled as “incels”
Curt and Katie explore the focus on “incels” in the discussions about the Netflix series Adolescence. We dive into the nuances of understanding internet subcultures and how therapists can effectively work with clients influenced by the manosphere, while also addressing concerns about suicidality, homicidality, and therapy strategies.
“My biggest issues with the therapist community is when I see people referring to their clients as incels, especially early adolescents, because we as therapists are reinforcing this idea that a 12, 13, 14, year old status in the world is based on their sexual prowess. And so this is where the words that I’m choosing in this episode are self identified incels, rather than referring to people as being in the incel community, or even worse, referring to clients themselves as incels.” – Curt Widhalm, LMFT
What is an “Incel” and where does that term fit into the evolution of the manosphere internet community?
- “Incel” stands for “involuntarily celibate,” and it originated in the 1990s from a website created by a Canadian university student. The community grew into a toxic online space, reinforcing harmful ideologies.
- Curt explains the history and evolution of the incel community, including its ties to platforms like 4chan and Reddit, and its connection to other parts of the manosphere, like the red pill community and men’s rights advocacy groups.
- The importance of understanding these online spaces and how their ideologies can influence the clients who engage in them.
Challenges in therapy with clients from the manosphere (incels, red pill, men’s rights groups)
“It seems like…that trying to come in and challenge, you know, kind of the thought distortions, or come in and try to push back against what these folks see as the truth would be very, very challenging and potentially ineffective. It seems like if you’ve got a whole bunch of people around you who are agreeing that we’re all broken and we cannot be fixed, there would be a motivation even to continue to hold that belief.” – Katie Vernoy, LMFT
- The difficulty of challenging harmful beliefs without making clients feel invalidated.
- The prevalence of all-or-nothing thinking, which can complicate therapeutic work.
- The risk of reinforcing a client’s identity being tied to misogynistic ideologies, particularly when they are young.
- The need for therapists to build trust and rapport before addressing these beliefs directly.
The intersection of autism and the incel community in therapy
- Clients who identify as both autistic and part of the incel community may struggle with cognitive patterns like black-and-white thinking, which poses a challenge in therapy.
- How autism and incel ideologies can overlap (but do not always), and how therapists need to be mindful of these intersections in their approach.
- The importance of ongoing assessment, particularly when addressing suicidality and homicidality in this population.
- Developing strategies for managing safety concerns while remaining empathetic and non-judgmental.
Safety concerns: Suicidality and homicidality in clients from manosphere communities
- How therapists can balance clinical efficacy with safety when working with clients who express harmful beliefs.
- The importance of using frameworks like the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) to guide risk assessments.
- The need for persistence and collaboration when assessing the intentions of clients who may test the therapist’s boundaries.
Strategies for effective therapy with clients from the incel/manosphere communities
- The importance of building trust by showing empathy and understanding without reinforcing harmful ideologies.
- Therapists should engage in self-care and consultation to avoid burnout, particularly when engaging with clients who may share distressing content.
- How therapists can help clients see beyond the black-and-white worldview they may hold, demonstrating that change is possible.
- The importance of establishing a therapeutic alliance that encourages client autonomy while maintaining safety.
Key treatment goals when working with clients from the incel community
- Building real-world relationships to demonstrate to clients that they can be accepted by others, despite their beliefs.
- Fostering an understanding of personal agency and self-worth beyond external validation.
- The need for a nuanced approach, particularly when working with resistant clients who may be entrenched in harmful ideologies.
- How therapists can model change through their own behavior, showing clients that growth is possible.
“It’s being able to build actual real relationships with these clients that show them, not just tell them, that things are capable of changing, that they can be accepted by people that they considered in the normies or the Chads or the Staceys of the world.” – Curt Widhalm, LMFT
Resources for Modern Therapists mentioned in this Podcast Episode:
We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!
Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast:
When Your Client Dies By Suicide: An interview with Dr. Nina Gutin
Risk Factors for Suicide: What therapists should know when treating teens and adults
Preventing Client Suicide, An interview with Norine Vander Hooven, LCSW
Topic: Suicide
On the APA Guidelines for Boys and Men
Why Aren’t Men Becoming Therapists Anymore?
Mass Shooters and Mental Illness
Navigating Religious Trauma, Spiritual Abuse, and Lies About God: An interview with Dr. Jamie Marich
Religious Trauma and High-Control Religion: An Interview with Anna Clark Miller, LPC, LMHC
Who we are:
Curt Widhalm, LMFT
Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com
Katie Vernoy, LMFT
Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com
A Quick Note:
Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.
Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.
Stay in Touch with Curt, Katie, and the whole Therapy Reimagined #TherapyMovement:
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Connect with the Modern Therapist Community:
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Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:
Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/
Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/
Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):
Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements).
… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)
Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.
Curt Widhalm 0:12
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is the podcast for therapists about the things that go on in our profession, the types of clients that we see, the ways that we as a field, respond to things in both our offices as well as the cultural zeitgeist. And at the time of this recording, the Netflix series Adolescents has just finished wrapping up. We realized with our production schedule that this episode is airing a little bit later, but I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the therapist’s reactions to not only the show, but also kind of working with some of the clients that are presented in the show and the way that they show up into these offices. I will admit I have not watched the show at the time of this recording, and I am basing all of my information on what I’ve seen in some of the therapists online forums, as well as some of the discussions that are going on. So there’s a couple of things from the show that I am going to reference as it is portrayed in some of these conversations, because I think that this does speak to the way that we as a field respond to the types of clients that show up in this show. Katie, I believe, at the time of this recording that you have also not watched this show.
Katie Vernoy 0:58
I have also not watched this show.
Curt Widhalm 1:36
So there should be no spoilers at all.
Katie Vernoy 1:42
We have an anti spoiler alert. If we tell you something, we don’t know if it’s right or not.
Curt Widhalm 1:47
So what I will say is that the premise of this show is, it is based in the UK. It is somewhat based on a true story. There’s a lot of not stuff from the true story that is being portrayed, but it apparently follows a 13 year old who is accused and found to have actually murdered a classmate, a female classmate. I’ve seen a lot of therapists describe this, and even within the show, the main character gets accused of being an incel and some of the ways that I’ve seen us in our beloved therapist’s community, talking about this show, talking about clients, makes me really want to throw out some caution around how we talk about people in this community. And I’m being very careful to not jump in and say, this is an episode about how we work with incels, because I think part of this is the very problem, it when we refer to clients in that way.
Katie Vernoy 2:55
I think we should probably start for folks who are not culturally aware on this this particular topic, define some terms, lay out the ground work, because I think incel is involuntarily celibate. Is that correct?
Curt Widhalm 3:13
It is, and I think that you are correct. And we need to talk a little bit about the history of not only this term, but also kind of how this has manifested over the last couple of decades into the larger manosphere engine.
Katie Vernoy 3:31
Man-o-sphere
Curt Widhalm 3:31
The manosphere. Yes
Katie Vernoy 3:35
Okay
Curt Widhalm 3:37
So incel, as a term, was started by a Canadian university student back in the 1990s. It was a website that she had put together talking about her own experiences of being involuntarily celibate, and her original term around this was I, N, V, C, E, L, inv-cel for involuntarily celibate that later got shortened down into the much more pronounceable incel without the V. Because everybody should pause the episode for one moment here and try to say that word with a V in the middle of it. But this was largely a community that, as she is known, Alana, had put together to talk about not being able to find sexual relationships, and was built largely with the intent of having a supportive community for other people who found themselves in the same place. And this was the wonderful time of the internet in the 1990s where people came together and they built supportive groups for each other, and it was a long time ago. And if you’re of a generation that did not grow up with the internet in the 90s, ask your older siblings or your parents about it, because the Internet has changed quite a bit since then.
Katie Vernoy 4:59
Sure.
Curt Widhalm 5:01
The manosphere communities as we know them today largely started to shift when websites started coming out in the early 2000s 2003 websites such as 4chan, 2005 websites such as Reddit, that allowed for some of these communities to become more factioned off and away from kind of the larger supportive atmospheres that the internets of the glory days of the 90s really had. I’m nostalgic for the 90s people, and you can’t convince me that that wasn’t the best decade for at least my lifetime.
Katie Vernoy 5:41
Okay.
Curt Widhalm 5:43
But to really understand these communities, I think you inherently have to have an understanding of internet culture itself, because a lot of what ends up happening with communities such as 4chan and Reddit is it’s a lot of anonymity. It’s a lot of being able to push the envelope in certain ways, and for people who are gravitating out of self identified communities to engage in banter that further and further, not only pushes but embraces one upsmanship, creates the perfect storm of an atmosphere to have communities develop in ways that can become very, very toxic and reinforce a lot of beliefs that can get acted out in ways that deal with things such as anger, misogyny and suicidality. And when a lot of the support or a lot of the social time that people spend is in communities that embrace these ideals, it is particularly for people who had a lot of access to the early days of the internet, I’m going to broad strokes hearsay, particularly young white men who had a lot of time to spend on the internet in the early days, created this atmosphere where this anger became put out in places such as humor and memes, and the ideas that, if we are not able to gain status through sexual conquests and sexual relationships, that where that ends up getting pushed further and further is into those misogynistic viewpoints that women are responsible for all of the ills that this particular community ends up facing. I do point this out into the larger manosphere, rather than focusing just in particular on the self identified incel community, because there are other similar communities that have existed and gained prominence over the last 20 years. And for people who are unfamiliar, they may look largely the same, and in this episode, one of the limitations in our time constraints is we’re going to kind of talk about all of them together, but it’s a little bit more nuanced than even what I’m going to present here. But some of these different communities are the self identified incel community. There’s also the red pill community, which stems out of the idea from The Matrix movie, where the main character Neo takes the red pill in order to see the way that the world truly is. And there’s other men’s right advocacy communities that also exist here, and all of them have slightly different ideologies about how to solve the problems of men and young boys, adolescents having problems that exist in the world.
Katie Vernoy 8:54
So looking specifically at the self identified incel or young men, boys, men, who are seeing women as the problem. It seems like there’s this element of all women hate all men. They won’t love me. There’s not really much hope here. And feminists are the epitome of man haters. It seems like there’s a lot that becomes kind of these gender battles. But then when you’re adding on the internet culture, it seems like it’s this additional piece of this anonymity and just vitriol that can happen in this back and forth between folks in the manosphere or the red pillers or whatever and kind of online feminists.
Curt Widhalm 9:49
So it’s not even as straightforward as what you’re talking about here, because one of the very prevalent things that exist in this community is the 80-20 people, which is the idea that 80% of women are attracted to the 20% of men who fit within the most idealistic, attractive, traditional masculine views, and in these communities are largely referred to as the Chads of the world. And so 80% of women are pursuing these 20% of men. There is a section within the middle of men that fall outside of that 20% that are referred to as normies. And then there’s those who are left, who are the self identified incels. Now we’re going to see some places where logic doesn’t necessarily fully fit here, because if you look at who’s attracted to the most 20% of attractive women, you would see maybe some of the same kinds of assumptions and numbers that would go on here. But we’re not going to directly challenge any of these ideas with these clients, for reasons that we’re going to talk about later in the episode. But within these 80% of women pursuing the 20% of men this leaves, the remaining women for the normies and the involuntarily celibate are then believed, there’s a self belief within that part of the community that they are going to never be sexually successful. They’re never going to quote ascend, which is have a sexual relationship. And this is what is referred to in some of these communities, as taking the black pill, a very nihilistic view that they are damaged and unchangeable and therefore the only place that they will really be able to have some sort of success in life is to fully embrace that they are broken.
Katie Vernoy 11:50
That feels really dark and sad, and it would be a pretty hard place to be, to be living In. It seems like, from what you had mentioned, both just a second ago and before we hit record, that trying to come in and challenge, you know, kind of the thought distortions, or come in and try to push back against what these folks see as the truth would be very, very challenging and potentially ineffective. It seems like if you’ve got a whole bunch of people around you who are agreeing that we’re all broken and we cannot be fixed, there would be a motivation even to continue to hold that belief. Other things that I’m thinking about is just this idea that if this value or this belief is so strong to push back against it and say, maybe I’m not broken, maybe there is someone for me, it would lose you access to this support group, this group of people who have been your lifeline if you’ve had these really dark thoughts.
… 13:08
(Advertisement Break)
Curt Widhalm 13:09
And this is again, looking at the kinds of people who end up in this space. Is that the internet is ever present, it’s ever evolving, it’s ever accessible. And so as mental health professionals, one of the things that we have to be aware of is that if these clients are then leaving our offices, the major support that they have is going into this community that is constantly reinforcing this idea that the world is out to get you. You’re there to be left behind. And it does end up being able to kind of in this double edged sword, foster support that reinforces this view that I am broken, I’m not able to have success. That a lot of times what I’ll hear from clients who identify as being a part of this community, and some of the research that I’ve come across that talks about in working with clients who come from this community, is this almost all or nothing idea around Well, I do try to go out and be nice to women, and then I end up immediately getting friend zoned, or I immediately end up getting pushed away. And so the nuanced view of this is trying to go out into experience the world with well meaning advice from therapists, but it goes out and it doesn’t end up having immediate levels of success. And you know where there is immediate levels of success going online and getting reinforced. See, I told you so and…
Katie Vernoy 14:45
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 14:46
So it does end up becoming something where we can have the perception of failure of helping these clients very, very quickly, if we give kind of plastic niceties around, Hey, you’re a good kid, why don’t you go and try this, and then them finding no success in that, and then being reinforced: See, even the mental health professionals can’t help you.
Katie Vernoy 15:10
Yeah, that’s that’s really rough. I try to, I’m trying to think through what strategies would be more effective, because so much of what we learn about socialization and being able to create relationships is going out and trying these things and being in space with people who may be like us, and strictly speaking, these communities are that, but it doesn’t solve potentially their presenting problem, which is not finding a relationship, or not having an in person social support, or even specifically not finding a sexual partner. And so I think it’s it’s something where it feels like therapists might be left with no tools in their tool belt, if anything that takes more than a little bit of time is going to be shot down by a very strong community of people behind these clients.
Curt Widhalm 16:09
And again, I’m going to maybe sound like a broken record in this episode. Working with clients like this does take an understanding of what the internet culture is, and particularly the internet culture of where these clients spend their time online. Which they may be very reluctant to talk with you about in the first place, because these are the dark corners of the web. These are places that are misunderstood, and for people who access it from a Normie perspective, end up being very shocked and aghast by what comes out there, because it is a lot of humor around suicidality. It’s a lot of humor around homicidality. It’s a lot of humor around pushing the very things that are outside of societal norms, because that’s where these people identify themselves as fitting in, and so it becomes very reinforcing to have a world view where your entire self worth and self basis is based on the ability to have sex. And one of my biggest issues with the therapist community is when I see people referring to their clients as incels, especially early adolescents, because we as therapists are reinforcing this idea that a 12, 13, 14, year old status in the world is based on their sexual prowess. And so this is where the words that I’m choosing in this episode are self identified incels, rather than referring to people as being in the incel community, or even worse, referring to clients themselves as incels.
Katie Vernoy 17:56
It feels very dangerous the both the the thought process and the labeling. To me when I when I think about this it, it reinforces the sense of other for the client and for the therapist. The therapist is seeing this person as potentially like the client sees themselves as broken, as wrong headed, potentially a problem to solve and not necessarily getting to the part of what led this client to this community. What are the underlying concerns? What are the resources that this client has available. And when I think about the kind of, you know, the simplified thing that I said before, you know, kind of famous feminists versus incels, or feminists versus the manosphere, I feel like there are a lot of female therapists. There’s, you know, kind of 60 to 80, 85% of therapists are identified as female, and it really puts a sense of other. We’ve done a couple of episodes about working with men and kind of the impacts of being a man in the professional space, and so we’ll link to those in the show notes as well. But I get very concerned that not really taking a deeper look into the person, the client who’s sitting in front of you, and labeling a client to the face, which is horrible or in your head, in this way, limits your perspective. I mean, it’s hugely biased, and it potentially limits your perspective. But when you were talking about calling someone an incel, there’s a few different things that I could see happening. One is that it feels like a huge insult. This is not the community I’m a part of, or whatever, or, you know, reinforces that they are only as valuable as their sexual prowess. But I can also see it being a mechanism to positively reinforce who they are and all of those things. I think about the memes that I’ve seen going around like, oh, well, if you’re going to call me woke, it means that I’m X, Y and Z, which are all these positive things, and it just reinforces that this is an amazing thing for me to be. And so in the in the way of reclaiming some of the things that can be seen as insult, I think it can harden the position and further push someone into these communities, which it sounds like work concern can be very harmful to some of these clients.
Curt Widhalm 20:43
Especially when some of these communities are identified by places such as Southern Poverty Law Center and the FBI as potential terrorist breeding grounds. A lot of the incel language really got brought out into the media in the 2014 Elliot Rogers Isla Vista murders that, with his manifesto, ended up really illustrating a lot of the struggles that he viewed as the world and a lot of the problems that was found after his death. So pushing our clients further into these is not necessarily something that we want to be able to risk. And it seems like there’s kind of this minefield around if we directly challenge them on this, it just, in a lot of ways, ends up reinforcing some of their beliefs that, Hey, I can’t be changed. And any of your platitudes towards trying to change me won’t change. Any attempts to try to spin it into a positive around Hey, own it, ends up reinforcing some of this within a community that they’re already finding support in. And so it does challenge a lot of clinicians abilities to work within this because back to the refrain of the episode, understanding internet culture, and particularly this corner of the internet’s culture, is the idea that one upsmanship is a part of the game, and so if we’re engaging in this challenge to some of these ideals, many clients who are self identified part of this community will almost look at this as some sort of chess match, and that’s my understanding of a lot of the way that episode three of the Adolescents show was, was it was the main character working with a psychologist who was trying to challenge him. Apparently, a lot of people in the therapist community really walked out of that episode wondering how they would interact with a client like this. But the very idea that there’s this challenge to anything that you might say might come across as very argumentative. It might come across as very reinforcing, or very much in that internet lingo, doing things for the lols, to be able to just argue with you for the sake of arguing, is a part that reinforces this community. Because if you make no progress with me during the session, look how ineffective you are, and that’s a reinstatement of how unfixable I am. And so if I can prove that to you by being as difficult as possible, or that’s the way that it comes across to therapists, it’s actually re-engaging some of these ideas that already exist within this community.
Katie Vernoy 23:54
So I have ideas, but you’ve, you’ve talked about potentially working with clients who have been parts of these communities. What are your recommendations on how a clinician can refrain from getting into that chess match or that negative space of reinforcing these viewpoints and really the the idea that the client in front of you is unfixable, because I feel like that is hugely important if we’re going to want to help these guys.
Curt Widhalm 24:30
So before we get into that, I do want to point out that a couple of the communities that have existed over the last couple of decades, the moderators will put out polls to many of the participants in these communities, some of them are about the most inane cultural stuff that are level seven depth memes that we don’t have the time on this podcast to explore that part of internet history. But some of them are questions about the community members themselves and one of the moderators on incel.co website, where some people had aggregated early in some of the formation of these communities, had posed a question to the audience members or the users around how many of you have an autism diagnosis? And 675 people in the community responded, and about 30% of the people identified as having an autism diagnosis. Now, this is the internet. This is an un scientific poll that was being done, but there’s a very large overlap between the autistic community and the people who are members of this community. I will clarify, just because somebody does have an autism diagnosis doesn’t mean that they are necessarily an incel but I will say that a very significant portion of this community does also identify as autistic.
Katie Vernoy 26:12
Okay.
Curt Widhalm 26:15
With that being the case, is some of the understanding of working with the autistic population within your therapy, and especially some of the ideas around all or nothing thinking that is a feature of the way that autism presents for a lot of clients. And so some of the more natural nuance sort of conversations that we would have as therapists might not necessarily be as impactful in working with clients in this way, who are operating in a couple of ways that there’s very black and white thinking, one being the autistic way, one being the way that the manosphere communities might end up reinforcing.
… 27:04
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Curt Widhalm 27:04
So before we get into any of the other clinical sort of recommendations, here is also very much understanding that it’s not just within these communities that people might end up gravitating towards, it’s also kind of the larger voices that exist, as far as being able to perpetuate some of this. And I’m talking about podcasts and other internet media personalities such as Joe Rogan or Andrew Tate that further push some of these divisive kinds of rhetoric and ideas about the world and about what it means to be a man and how to be a Chad and everything else that does take, now here’s the clinical advice, actually listening to the clients and about where they spend their time and not passing judgment on it, because, in order to show some kind of trust, some kind of ability to show that the world doesn’t exist in such black and white places, shows a deeper level of understanding, rather than immediately jumping to correct and change people. Is many of the problematic things is have emerged over the last few years about Marilyn Manson. One of the things that in looking at people who are prone to these kinds of communities and prone to these kinds of violence is after the Columbine shooting, and Marilyn Manson’s music was amongst that identified by the Columbine shooters. He was asked, what would he have said to these kids before they engaged in in that tragedy? And maybe one of the things that I think that he said actually correctly, this doesn’t excuse anything else that Marilyn Manson has done, but one of the things that he said correctly is “I wouldn’t have told him anything. I would have listened to him.”
Katie Vernoy 29:13
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 29:14
And I think it’s being able to fit within having an empathetic relationship with clients before we really work to try and change what their worldview is, and that is going to challenge a lot of the empathic skills that therapists have, because it’s not easy, and it’s particularly not easy for female presenting therapists to be able to sit in and engage with the rhetoric that’s being expanded on and being able to be shared, because you’re very much at risk of reinforcing the ideas that they’re getting from the other 23 hours out of their day.
Katie Vernoy 29:59
It seems to me that especially female presenting female identified therapists would need to do some of their own work around this and/or identify if this is a population they could work effectively with. In sitting with uncomfortable ideology, uncomfortable statements, philosophies I think about the ability to sit with darkness, and if we even step away from some of the manosphere thought process, and we think about sitting with clients, you have a lot of suicidal ideology, or clients who have a lot of anger or dark thoughts, being able to sit with those things without shaming or having horrible reactions to it, or going immediately to safety planning and all those things. I think that’s very challenging as a therapist, at least I maybe I shouldn’t speak for everyone, but it seems that it’s challenging to folks to sit in the darkness and not go to the problem solving, and not going to the thought, the cognitive restructuring, the challenging, all of those things to try to move the client into a more positive, or potentially even, I don’t know if this is the right word, but a normative type thought process. And so when I think about adding the additional piece, and to be honest, I have had clients that have had some of this, but adding the additional piece of this perspective of women being man haters and having caused these problems for them and having that there, I think it is an additional piece to be able to hold space for that, because It is one more element you at, you have the darkness, and then you add this part that theoretically is misogynistic and aimed at me, potentially. I think sometimes those conversations can happen in a space that feels more philosophical, and so it’s it doesn’t feel as heated. But I also wonder if, if you stick with philosophy, and you stick kind of higher level thought process, if it’s as impactful as being able to really get in there and sit in the darkness with your client before moving into a space that potentially includes whether it’s safety planning and other things that would be of benefit and/or potentially be needed for liability reasons. But I think there’s, there’s a lot to deal with in these conversations, especially depending on how deep into the manosphere the client that you’re sitting with has traveled.
Curt Widhalm 32:58
And as you’re talking and trying to more succinctly put together, some of my thoughts on this is that there’s a lot of testing that can happen from clients working with you, if they are coming in, and a lot of them are going to be a lot of them are not necessarily going to be self referring to therapy. A lot of them are going to be brought in by their parents for either concerns about their engagement in these communities or around other related presentations, and I’ll get to those in just a moment here. But a lot of clients might be very resistant to therapy and a lot of testing: Can you handle me? type behaviors that might engage over several of the first sessions. And in general, the advice in working with adolescents is try to get into their world. See what it is that they’re into. We’ve had how many guests and episodes of our own where it’s listen to your client’s music. What is it that they get out of them? And with clients who are engaged in this kind of internet culture or this kind of ideology, if what they share with you is something that you recoil at, you have just once again reinforced that vulnerability is a terrible thing to have, and you are to not be trusted. So you’ve got to be able to walk this light around going into here are memes that have a history beyond them that has just resulted in all right, this is going to be death, or this is going to be misogynistic, or this is going to be very hatred. And it’s hilarious. And not necessarily to you, but it’s something where when they do open up about this, you have to be prepared to step into that and show them that you’re willing to go where they’re at. In order to be able to meet them there.
Katie Vernoy 35:02
And so I’m going to go into my usual caveat around folks who feel very unsafe in these spaces and or have their own marginalized identities or things that have put them in a place where this is not something they can weather. And so I think it, it is a skill set I think that most therapists should have, and I think that there are some clients that each of us don’t have a skill set that that is equal to the task. We have to do that assessment. And I think that there’s potentially a question here, because I know what you’re going to say, but I also want to have you say it. When we think about some of the things that these clients might be putting forward, there are some potential safety issues. There are some potential really harmful beliefs. And so far, we’ve gotten to listen and understand and get into their world. And I think that there are a lot of therapists and I walk through this and try to sort this out for myself as well, who do not want to be seen as condoning really harmful or dangerous beliefs with their clients. And so I think it’s figuring out, how do we work with clients to get to a place that feels like it’s in the client’s best interest, potentially in society’s best interest. And so when we think about clients who may be dangerous to others, what is our responsibility here, and how do we walk this line between clinical efficacy and safety, slash liability concerns?
Curt Widhalm 35:02
I’m going to answer that, but I want to start with what you just started your previous…
Katie Vernoy 37:04
Sure.
Curt Widhalm 37:05
…caution to our community. And while I agree with that, in general, there’s also these clients who are going to show up in your office, whether it’s something that you identify from the intake or not. And if you are finding yourself working with these clients, self care consultation, your own therapy, is very important because of the client that you’re walking, and you don’t want to end up being somebody that turns these clients off of the mental health field in general. Because if a referral out to somebody who does understand this community better, if you’re somebody who can help facilitate that great, but if you do find yourself in a position where you can’t refer them out, your own consultation through this process is very, very important.
Katie Vernoy 37:58
Yes.
Curt Widhalm 37:59
The risk factors is something that is very tantamount to this. And so there are some other overlapping diagnostics that show up, depression and hopelessness is very much there. I also want to point out that people who are either at risk for or have been diagnosed with psychosis, might also find homes within this community as well. Also people with eating disorders and body dysmorphia might also gravitate towards this. And again, if you look at it from kind of that perspective of there’s something wrong with me. You can see the overlap there pretty easily. So you do want to look out for both suicidality and homicidality. It’s part of this, and some of this is the normalization around these as attitudes or as actions within some of the memes and the humor and the conversations that exist within this community, and a lot of it might just be verbiage that gets used and adopted into regular day to day language, but you have to have a continuing, ongoing assessment, as Is there an actual intention to follow through on this? And some of the language might be not as traditional as we’ve been taught in some of the suicidality courses, because sometimes the language within this community is going to be encouraging people to go and find peace along the ideas that peace can only be had when your life ends. So for suicidality, I do recommend the collaborative assessment and management of suicidality. It’s the CAMS care this is a little bit more evaluative in getting clients to talk about their thought processes towards end of life, ending their own life, self inflicted, ending of life, types of behaviors, I find that this ends up being one of the ones that’s better equipped to working with this community. Homicidality, a lot of the rhetoric around actually going out and attempting to harm other people, you have to walk in that balance of, is this an expression of anger, or is there intent to actually follow through on it? And even sometimes, the actual answers that you’re going to be given to questions is still something that is not at face value. It’s going to be something like, yeah, of course, I want to go out and I want to, you know, fight somebody, kill somebody, end their life, and you continue to press through that, as far as, what does that actually look like? What do you actually mean by that? Some cases you’re going to get, I’m just really angry, and this is all just fantasy, but it takes persistence from you as a clinician in some of these discussions, rather than taking everything at face value.
Katie Vernoy 41:11
So we need to start wrapping up, and I think it makes sense, we’ll link to some of the suicidality suicide episodes in our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. I think we need to do a homicidality episode. I think we haven’t done that. I’ll double check. We’ve done so many episodes, but I’ll double check, and if there is one, I’ll put it in the show notes, too. But I think it does make sense to walk through more about homicidality assessment and duty to warn, and all of those types of things. And maybe tie back to this episode for some of that. But before we do finish up, I think the other part of the question really was, what is the goal of treatment? When you’re understanding getting into their world those types of things, that makes a lot of sense. That’s, that’s kind of the initial space that’s joining. That’s assessment. That’s a lot of those things. But where, what is the goal, obviously, in collaboration with your client, but broadly, what are the types of goals that you might want to be aiming for with these clients?
Curt Widhalm 42:18
Broadly, the kinds of goals that you’re looking to do: is it’s showing through action, not just telling clients that the world is changeable, that they are changeable. Because a lot of these clients are going to come in with these are very fixed places that are happening in the world. And it’s not bullshitting your clients and telling them that they’re capable of anything, but it’s having a lot more realistic view of how the real world works outside of some of these internet corners, and that these are places amongst a lot wider variety. But it’s being able to build actual real relationships with these clients that show them, not just tell them, that things are capable of changing, that they can be accepted by people that they considered in the normies or the Chads or the Staceys of the world.
Katie Vernoy 43:17
I like that that makes a lot of sense.
Curt Widhalm 43:19
You can find our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. We would love for you to follow us on our social media. Let us know what you think about these episodes. You can engage further in some conversations with us over in our Facebook group at the Modern Therapist Group, and until next time I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy.
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