The Charlie Kirk Show - How Bad Therapy Wrecks Children

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, the legendary Abigail Schreier joins us where we talk about bad therapy, irreversible damage, and more.

00:00:06.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:08.000 Subscribe to our podcast.

00:00:10.000 Open up your podcast app and type in Charlie Kirk show.

00:00:13.000 Get involved with TurningPointUSA at tpusa.com.

00:00:17.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:18.000 Charty high school or college chapter today at tpusa.com.

00:00:23.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:24.000 Here we go.

00:00:25.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:27.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:00:29.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:32.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:35.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:36.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:37.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:00:39.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:00:44.000 Turning point USA. 0.65

00:00:46.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:00:55.000 That's why we are here.

00:00:58.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.

00:01:08.000 Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:01:14.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:01:17.000 It's where I buy all of my gold.

00:01:18.000 Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:01:23.000 Abigail, thank you so much for joining the program.

00:01:26.000 Thanks for having me on, Charlie.

00:01:28.000 It's great to be here.

00:01:29.000 I want to just compliment you from the get-go.

00:01:29.000 Thank you.

00:01:32.000 People were really afraid of talking about this transgender issue for years.

00:01:36.000 And your book, I think, had one of the most profound effects on moving the Overton window and opening people's eyes.

00:01:43.000 So I want to thank you for that.

00:01:44.000 It's an incredible accomplishment.

00:01:46.000 But I do want to start with your book, Bad Therapy.

00:01:48.000 Tell us about your new book.

00:01:50.000 So my book, Bad Therapy, Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up, it's all about why this generation, the rising generation known as Gen Z, why the generation that has received the most mindfulness tips, the most wellness tips, the most therapy, the most mental health diagnosis, and the most psychiatric medication, they should be the picture of mental health.

00:01:50.000 Sure.

00:02:10.000 Instead, they're the picture of despair.

00:02:12.000 So the kids who've gotten the most therapy are actually in the most distress.

00:02:16.000 And I wanted to know why and why do they have no interest in growing up?

00:02:20.000 And it turns out the flood of therapy they've been getting in the culture, in schools, in offices of therapists have been really counterproductive.

00:02:31.000 They've convinced a generation that has trauma.

00:02:34.000 So many of them are nearly 42% have a diagnosis and they believe they are unwell.

00:02:42.000 Over half of them think they are unwell mentally.

00:02:44.000 And that's why they are not really feeling up to the challenges of adulthood.

00:02:49.000 Do you think there's an over-diagnosis problem where you have 42% of young people that say they have some form of a diagnosis?

00:02:56.000 Is this just kind of the normal speed bumps of life that might get categorized as like general anxiety disorder?

00:03:03.000 Or is it that there actually is an intake in the an uptick in the objective, let's say, characteristics that would say someone's anxious or depressed?

00:03:14.000 Or is it just that if you don't have a diagnosis, you're kind of missing out?

00:03:19.000 So it's both, right?

00:03:20.000 We've set up a system basically in school, in the culture, where it is valorized to have a mental illness, to have some disorder.

00:03:29.000 So kids are looking to have it.

00:03:31.000 And we're way overdiagnosing kids.

00:03:34.000 I mean, as of 2016, one in six American children between the ages of two and eight had a mental health or behavioral diagnosis.

00:03:42.000 That's one in six little kids.

00:03:44.000 Those kids were not on social media, but they were in a culture that is way over psychopathologizing normal human adult, you know, normal human emotional reaction.

00:03:55.000 And that's what we're doing.

00:03:56.000 We're convincing a whole population of kids that they're unwell.

00:04:00.000 So let's say, let's take their argument at face value, they being the medical industry, that 42% of kids actually have legitimate mental health issues.

00:04:10.000 The treatment is not even working for people that might have legitimate issues.

00:04:14.000 So let's talk about both sides of it. 0.60

00:04:16.000 The sentence you just mentioned is kind of chilling that you're valorized to have a mental disorder. 0.97

00:04:21.000 I just have to stop there. 0.65

00:04:23.000 How did we get there?

00:04:24.000 Where does that come from?

00:04:25.000 You know, the mental health industry has just expanded so rapidly over the last few decades.

00:04:31.000 They've taken over more and more of American life and certainly all of child rearing. 0.97

00:04:35.000 And if you listen to kids today, they never say they're sad.

00:04:38.000 They say they're depressed.

00:04:40.000 They never say they had a rough time in middle school.

00:04:42.000 They say they have PTSD.

00:04:44.000 They never say they're worried.

00:04:45.000 They say they have anxiety.

00:04:47.000 These kids are swimming in the language of psychopathology.

00:04:50.000 They don't know that it's normal to go through a period and face some adversity.

00:04:55.000 They don't know that it's normal to face your fears and overcome them and that we all have fears.

00:05:00.000 They're constantly being told that that's your trauma and it's making them sicker.

00:05:05.000 And it really is the caretakers of society who I'd imagine are to blame.

00:05:10.000 Is it the parents in particular?

00:05:12.000 Is it the medical industry that are throwing out these diagnoses so loosely?

00:05:17.000 Who is mostly to blame?

00:05:19.000 It's a good question.

00:05:20.000 I think mental health experts writt large are mostly to blame.

00:05:24.000 They've written all the best-selling parenting books.

00:05:26.000 They've completely undermined parents' sense that they have any confidence in what they're doing, that they know what they're doing.

00:05:32.000 They've convinced a generation of parents that if they don't know about the amygdala of their children, they can't possibly raise a good child. 0.79

00:05:39.000 It's a ridiculous, it's a ridiculous assertion, but literally nearly all of them makes it. 0.75

00:05:45.000 And they've taught parents that they can never punish. 0.96

00:05:48.000 They can never hold kids to high expectations or high standards because that could be emotionally traumatizing.

00:05:55.000 It isn't true.

00:05:56.000 I wrote the book to show it isn't true and to try to stop the constant, you know, pushing around of parents by mental health experts.

00:06:05.000 Yeah, there is a bullying and there's a pushing towards it.

00:06:09.000 And but it's also, it's part of these campaigns that happen at school as well.

00:06:14.000 The parents themselves might just be raising their kids in the traditional way that they were raised, but then they'll go to school and they'll say that, you know, hey, this is mental health awareness week or, you know, and then it spreads almost like, dare I say, a social contagion, which that might make this book almost like a sequel to your original.

00:06:36.000 In a way, it is.

00:06:37.000 I mean, it's just a broader look at all the ways the mental health experts have convinced a generation of kids and their parents that they're not well and they're not up to the challenges of life.

00:06:46.000 And you said a social contagion, look, just like they spread and they did, the mental health experts absolutely participated in spreading the idea that teenage girls were suddenly transgender.

00:06:56.000 Now they're spreading the idea that they all have trauma.

00:06:59.000 And that's why in schools, they're doing social emotional learning.

00:07:02.000 The idea is you have to learn to emotionally regulate in a class.

00:07:06.000 What I did was I looked at this actual psychological research and the whole and the actual psychological research is if you wanted to make kids sadder, more anxious, and have less efficacy, less sense that they could do for themselves, you couldn't design a program better than what's going on in schools today, where the kids are constantly directed to sit around and talk about their bad feelings, focus on their bad experiences and dwell.

00:07:31.000 That's exactly the number one symptom of depression.

00:07:35.000 I want to dive into this.

00:07:37.000 I don't want to say it's narcissism, but it makes kids think about themselves and their feelings a lot more than duty and obligations.

00:07:45.000 Do you find that to be true?

00:07:47.000 It's absolutely true and it's totally unhealthy.

00:07:50.000 Sitting around and thinking about yourself is the worst thing we could be leading kids to do every day.

00:07:56.000 And people always ask me what would be better than social-emotional learning, which has many, I mean, the proven track record at this point of making kids sadder and more depressed and more anxious.

00:08:06.000 What can we do that's better than that?

00:08:08.000 And I say to them, literally anything.

00:08:10.000 Have them paint the gym, pick up trash around the school.

00:08:14.000 They could do any activity that isn't sitting around thinking about themselves, and it would be better than this.

00:08:20.000 Yeah, it's all that idea of what you ought to do to serve and this inward-facing trend.

00:08:27.000 Now, you mentioned something that I want to pinpoint.

00:08:29.000 I have no idea what you feel about this, but you mentioned in kind of a string of ineffective therapies.

00:08:34.000 I have no problem with mindfulness or meditation.

00:08:36.000 I actually kind of like it at times.

00:08:38.000 But the, let's just say, the premise of mindfulness is very inward-facing and it is very much about yourself.

00:08:45.000 That's a very difficult concept for maybe a 12 or 13-year-old to grasp.

00:08:50.000 Do you think that might be one of the you get what I'm getting here?

00:08:53.000 Is there an issue here of the general approach?

00:08:56.000 That's exactly right.

00:08:57.000 What I want people to know is that adults who go into any form of therapy or mindfulness or whatever, who have developed their own views of the world, their own sense of what they can handle, it's a totally different experience.

00:09:09.000 If an adult wants to see a therapist once a week and just have a non-judgmental space to talk about problems, by all means, they should do it.

00:09:17.000 But what I want parents to know is when you take a child and sign them up for therapy of any sort, they are not in a position to say, listen, I know my mom shouldn't have yelled at me, but I don't think I'd call it emotionally abusive.

00:09:29.000 I don't think I would call my parents toxic.

00:09:32.000 They're not in a position to know those things.

00:09:34.000 And so we're seeing things like family alienation at very high rates.

00:09:39.000 And we're also seeing therapists convince kids or teachers acting as therapists that they've had trauma.

00:09:45.000 They're buying into this idea.

00:09:47.000 And guess what?

00:09:48.000 They're exhibiting the symptoms because they've bought in.

00:09:52.000 This is such an important topic.

00:09:53.000 I see frequently.

00:09:54.000 It's the most suicidal, depressed, alcohol-addicted, and drug-addicted generation history.

00:10:00.000 And then the therapy you'd think would be somewhat effective.

00:10:03.000 Not only do you have an issue of diagnosing and people that actually might not have these issues then think they have those issues and it spreads, but then what we do to actually treat them isn't working either.

00:10:13.000 I want to encourage you to check out Dr. Abigail Schreier's both of her books.

00:10:17.000 I'm just a fan, to be honest.

00:10:19.000 They're so well written, so well researched.

00:10:21.000 Bad Therapy, Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up by Abigail Schreier, and also Irreversible Damage, which I believe was one of the most important pieces of literature to add reason to the transgender insanity that is enveloping the country. 1.00

00:10:38.000 It's not a question if something is coming, it's when.

00:10:42.000 The only shock, the what.

00:10:43.000 While you still have some control, what are you going to do about it?

00:10:46.000 Your first step is going to mypatriotsupply.com.

00:10:49.000 Your next step is stocking up on multiple one-week emergency food kits from MyPatriot Supply.

00:10:54.000 Priced under $50, it is now time to buy in bulk.

00:10:58.000 MyPatriot Supply is equipped to help you prepare.

00:11:01.000 They've helped over 2 million families already.

00:11:04.000 These one-week kits with ready-hour foods provide over 2,000 calories every day, and they're sealed inside a rugged ammo can so they can last up to 25 years in storage.

00:11:13.000 Just grab it and go in emergencies.

00:11:15.000 Get these kits for under $50 this week only at mypatriotsupply.com.

00:11:19.000 That is mypatriotsupply.com, mypatriotsupply.com.

00:11:26.000 So let's talk about the therapeutic side.

00:11:28.000 Let's say somebody does have some legitimate depression.

00:11:31.000 They might have some anxiety that might be, let's just say, over-exaggerated due to culture, but let's just say there's something there.

00:11:38.000 Is the therapy itself is not effective.

00:11:42.000 It doesn't make people break through.

00:11:45.000 What did your research show from the benzodiazepines to Zolof to Prozac to Ritalin to run us through that, please?

00:11:53.000 Yeah, that's really important stuff.

00:11:55.000 So, let me just say, if you have a kid and you cannot stabilize the kid any other way, by all means, they may need therapy and they may need even these different medications.

00:12:05.000 If they're, you know, if you have a child who's anorexic, I'm not saying there's never a place for therapy.

00:12:10.000 Sometimes it's essential and even life-saving.

00:12:13.000 But you have to start that we have to reset our default settings.

00:12:17.000 So, the default shouldn't be to run to therapy and drugs because they can introduce risks of their own.

00:12:24.000 Even therapy introduces a known body of research, you know, well-researched risks like increasing anxiety, increasing depression, alienation from family members, and undermining a person's sense of efficacy that they can do in this world on their own without checking in with a shrink.

00:12:42.000 So, all those are classic side effects.

00:12:44.000 Now, the drugs, what are the problems with the drugs with kids?

00:12:48.000 So, every one of these is a different category, as you mentioned, and they all come with different risks.

00:12:55.000 But so, we can start with ADHD drugs.

00:12:58.000 So, these are stimulants.

00:13:00.000 The stimulants, by the way, you know, I'm not against ever introducing a stimulant.

00:13:05.000 The problem is what we've given kids is an unhealthy life, too much tech, too much, you know, they don't have enough exercise.

00:13:15.000 And then we put them in a classroom.

00:13:16.000 And the second a teacher says they aren't bolted to their seat, the teacher refers them.

00:13:21.000 And teachers are the number one source of referral for ADH diagnosis.

00:13:25.000 Pediatricians are handing out things like Ritalin to kids.

00:13:30.000 This is a stimulant.

00:13:31.000 It has, you have to worry about things like addiction.

00:13:34.000 It tends to work less well over time, meaning you'll need to up the dose to get the same effect.

00:13:39.000 And of course, maybe the worst part about it is a kid who is inattentive in school, but is left alone without unmedicated may learn to cope in various ways, like finding out what he's actually more interested in.

00:13:52.000 If you never even let them sit with that or try other things, you never know what the kid can overcome on his own.

00:13:59.000 And he'll always feel that he needs a drug to handle life.

00:14:03.000 Yes.

00:14:04.000 And also, what if the cure is worse than the disease?

00:14:09.000 And that is, it's a major issue, especially when it comes to, you know, young people that have developing brains.

00:14:17.000 We don't quite understand how some of these pharmacological interventions work.

00:14:22.000 We kind of do.

00:14:23.000 Like, I mean, SSRIs are incredibly complex drugs.

00:14:26.000 They can create addiction problems.

00:14:29.000 They also can create tons of other side effects.

00:14:32.000 And that people, I mean, Dr. Jordan Peterson had his own battle publicly, you know, with SSRIs and similar type drugs.

00:14:40.000 So is it your contention also in your research that most kids will grow out of some of these ailments?

00:14:47.000 And I believe that very often there are things in the environment that could be making them worse.

00:14:47.000 Yeah.

00:14:53.000 Look, let's take SSRIs.

00:14:55.000 So these are antidepressants.

00:14:56.000 As you said, we don't know why they work.

00:14:59.000 So it may be that they're capping all emotions, negative and positive.

00:15:04.000 You're stripping a child's emotional resources for handling life at the moment they're developing those resources.

00:15:11.000 This is not an adult.

00:15:13.000 This is a child. 0.96

00:15:14.000 You get in there and you delete their ability to have a sex drive when they're teenagers.

00:15:18.000 They won't even know what they're missing.

00:15:20.000 They'll just have a sense of numbness to their own lives.

00:15:24.000 We don't know why suicidality is a side effect.

00:15:27.000 Okay.

00:15:27.000 We just don't know, but it seems to be for adolescents.

00:15:31.000 The problem with SSRI is that with all the side effects and the weight gain and the whatever, suicidality, all the big risks, the biggest thing is you're putting a kid in an emotional snowsuit when he's just developing the musculature to his own life.

00:15:43.000 And let me tell you something.

00:15:44.000 We've all gone through hard times.

00:15:45.000 Okay.

00:15:46.000 A kid going through adolescence, that is a hard time.

00:15:50.000 But if you never give them the shot of handling that life on their own, handling heartache and disappointment and some amount of failure, which we've all lived through and overcome, they may never feel that they can do it on their own.

00:16:04.000 And that in some sense is the biggest tragedy of all.

00:16:08.000 I mean, look, you can also talk about the benzos, which are their own, you know, problems.

00:16:13.000 Yes.

00:16:13.000 Yeah.

00:16:14.000 But those are sedated.

00:16:16.000 I mean, those are used to largely sedate people and just calm down, you know, hospital patients sometimes that have major issues with tremors and so forth.

00:16:26.000 Yeah, benzos, I mean, they're highly addictive, as we know from the Jordan Peterson experience.

00:16:32.000 But the other thing is anxiety, depression, these things exist for a reason, believe it or not.

00:16:38.000 Now, I'm not saying if you have absolutely pathological anxiety and it's ruining your life, don't do anything about it.

00:16:43.000 Even for a child, you may need to.

00:16:45.000 But the thing is, with anxiety, it increases performance.

00:16:50.000 It helps us make clear memories.

00:16:52.000 The reason we remember our first kiss is maybe because of the anxiety that preceded it.

00:16:57.000 So there are very good reasons for these emotions and these feelings that we have.

00:17:01.000 Depression, by the way, you go through a period of depression.

00:17:05.000 Sometimes that may help you make a change in your life that needs to be made.

00:17:09.000 If you go in there and delete that feeling, you may never have the will to make an important life change.

00:17:15.000 So, you know, I'm not saying there's no place for them, but before we go in and do these radical things with our kids, we really ought to at least try to alter their environment and turn their lives upside down to give them a healthier environment.

00:17:29.000 And they're also, so let's talk about the medical side of this.

00:17:29.000 Yeah.

00:17:32.000 Do they acknowledge that these interventions are failing and that they might be doing far more damage than good?

00:17:39.000 It's interesting.

00:17:40.000 A team of researchers that I, you know, to quote in the book, and I interviewed several of them, they figured this out and they called it the treatment prevalence paradox when it comes to depression.

00:17:50.000 Across the Western world, we have been increasing prevalence of treatment.

00:17:56.000 Sorry, prevalence of the disease of depression has gone up with the increase in treatment.

00:18:01.000 There's greater access and awareness of depression than ever, and yet our treatments are clearly not working.

00:18:08.000 I argue that they're actually counterproductive, but they're clearly not working.

00:18:12.000 All this talk about mental health, you need to be focusing on your mental health, thinking about your mental health, thinking about your feelings.

00:18:19.000 It's the opposite of what we should be doing with kids.

00:18:22.000 Yeah, it's just the, is there a pill-pushing agenda?

00:18:28.000 Let me ask you this question.

00:18:29.000 Let me ask you this for me.

00:18:30.000 How many kids are currently on, let's say, aggressive pharmacological agents?

00:18:35.000 I would use SSRIs, benzodiazepines, Zoloc Prozat.

00:18:37.000 Is it the millions?

00:18:38.000 Is it tens of millions?

00:18:39.000 How many kids under the age of 18?

00:18:41.000 Do we know the answer to that?

00:18:42.000 You know, I don't know the answer.

00:18:44.000 I've seen some statistics and sometimes it's self-reporting and it's not clear how accurate they are.

00:18:49.000 What I can tell you is that, you know, it's not only gone up tremendously in the last few years, but the FDA just last year approved Lexapro.

00:18:58.000 This is a very strong SSRI for seven-year-olds.

00:19:01.000 So you see how we're starting to do that.

00:19:05.000 We do not quite understand how these drugs work.

00:19:08.000 And for a seven-year-old, that is just unbelievable to me.

00:19:13.000 Yeah.

00:19:14.000 So we're putting very, very young kids on major antidepressants and they're never going to know what it's what.

00:19:21.000 And we're seeing in college what we would expect, right?

00:19:24.000 Which is kids having basically nervous breakdowns over the slightest challenge, like being rejected by a friend or whatever, that sends these kids into a world of pain because they've never had to deal with it on their own.

00:19:38.000 Is there anything in your research of bad therapy that gives you hope?

00:19:38.000 It is something else.

00:19:42.000 Is there any good therapy that you came across?

00:19:45.000 There is good therapy.

00:19:46.000 There is stuff that gives me hope.

00:19:48.000 The number one thing that gives me hope is that parents can fix this completely.

00:19:52.000 They need to assert their own authority with kids. 1.00

00:19:55.000 Stop relying on these phony experts.

00:19:57.000 I wrote the book to give them all the ammunition they need to push back on the schools and push back on the mental health experts and take back the reins of raising their own kids.

00:20:08.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

00:20:09.000 Have you ever desired to play a role in reshaping the film industry away from its current messaging?

00:20:14.000 Angel Studios, the one that brought you The Chosen, sets the highest standards of storytelling in the industry.

00:20:21.000 Every series or movie that undergoes production must first secure the approval of the Angel Guild.

00:20:27.000 The Angel Guild stands as a powerful movement, and I want you to become a guild voter.

00:20:33.000 This grants you the power to influence the green lighting of the next groundbreaking project.

00:20:39.000 By joining with the Angel Guild, you'll not only endorse the creation of more quality content, but also unlock access to exclusive perks.

00:20:47.000 From complimentary movie tickets to early previews of films and TV shows, your membership comes with a variety of benefits.

00:20:54.000 Participate today and help shape the future of entertainment, not just for your generation, but for your children's as well.

00:21:00.000 Visit angel.com/slash guild.

00:21:03.000 That is angel.com/slash guild.

00:21:04.000 Together, we'll collapse movies that resonate deeply.

00:21:07.000 Angel.com/slash guild.

00:21:11.000 So, Abigail, I want to talk about your book, Irreversible Damage.

00:21:15.000 When you first started to research that topic, did you have any idea first the impact or the backlash you would receive and also the shelf life?

00:21:24.000 I mean, it is four years later, and we're still talking about it.

00:21:26.000 Yeah, I mean, it's hard to know with a book.

00:21:29.000 You come out with a book.

00:21:30.000 I had some indication that, you know, it would upset people to give parents the truth about what these interventions involved from puberty blockers to cross-sex hormones.

00:21:43.000 But because Amazon right away would barred my publisher from even placing ads.

00:21:49.000 We were told in advance of publication that there would be no ads for me.

00:21:54.000 But I didn't expect the general giant societal backlash that I got, I guess, from, I shouldn't say societal, really from the mainstream institutions.

00:22:06.000 So the ACLU came out in favor of banning my book.

00:22:10.000 Libraries still to this day, most American libraries refuse to carry it.

00:22:14.000 Even when people will donate to the library, a library will refuse it.

00:22:19.000 So there was a campaign to advertise my book.

00:22:21.000 People, you know, dug into their own pockets to pay for ads to advertise the book.

00:22:25.000 These are parents.

00:22:26.000 It wasn't because of me.

00:22:27.000 They just wanted to do it.

00:22:29.000 And the billboard companies shut it down in response to the activists.

00:22:32.000 So there was a lot of effort to cancel the book and censor the book.

00:22:36.000 And no, I didn't predict any of that.

00:22:39.000 Target removed it from its offering.

00:22:41.000 So anyway, there's a lot, a lot of uproar.

00:22:43.000 So I want to dive into one aspect of it, and it is the title.

00:22:47.000 And I'm enjoying reading.

00:22:48.000 I'm not finishing.

00:22:48.000 I'm actually reading your book and Dr. Miriam Grossman's book in tandem together.

00:22:52.000 But it's an interesting approach.

00:22:54.000 And I hope people understand this.

00:22:55.000 It's about the transgender craze. 0.99

00:22:57.000 But on the cover, it says the craze seducing our girls.

00:23:03.000 It's specific towards young ladies, which we see with girls are actually far more susceptible to fall under the spell of this social contagion than boys.

00:23:15.000 Why is that?

00:23:16.000 Because girls socialize differently from boys. 0.97

00:23:19.000 Girls tend to co-ruminate. 1.00

00:23:21.000 That means they tend to talk about their pain together as a way of bonding.

00:23:26.000 And what that means is when you're co-ruminating with another girl, when you're taking on their pain, that's why social contagions spread among girls so often.

00:23:36.000 A boy, if a boy says to his friend, I feel depressed, the friend might say, let's go play basketball.

00:23:42.000 But a girl will say, tell me about it. 1.00

00:23:45.000 Oh, that's awful.

00:23:46.000 I feel sad too.

00:23:48.000 And that's the pattern that increases, although it makes for very close female relationships. 1.00

00:23:53.000 It can also spread a social contagion.

00:23:56.000 And that's what we saw with the transgender identification. 0.68

00:23:58.000 Oh, I feel like a boy too.

00:24:00.000 So in the book, you go through what this phenomenon is, what this craze is, and how we can fight against it.

00:24:07.000 And also how unsuspecting parents are awakened to find their daughters in the thrall of this.

00:24:12.000 I have a unique question for you, Abigail.

00:24:14.000 Four years later, where does this stand?

00:24:16.000 Has this accelerated more in the culture?

00:24:19.000 Have we made progress here?

00:24:21.000 Give us a status update four years post-publication.

00:24:25.000 So it's been amazing.

00:24:26.000 I mean, they shut down the clinic in England based on the, you know, exactly what the problems that I warned about in the book, the medical, the lack of oversight, the dangers of things like puberty blockers, the dangers of cross-sex hormones for kids, the complete lack of oversight of girls who are making this decision based on a tough time in adolescence, not based on any medical need, and the lack of indication that this prevents suicide, which was one of the many lies the activists told over and over.

00:24:54.000 This was the, you know, cure. 0.90

00:24:56.000 This was going to prevent a transgender teen from killing himself.

00:24:59.000 There was never proof of that.

00:25:01.000 There wasn't proof that gender, you know, transgender identification was a, you know, a reason for feeling suicidal, nor that it was the medications were the, you know, I shouldn't even call them net medications, the treatments, which were really reckless. 0.98

00:25:15.000 There was no proof that they cured suicidality.

00:25:17.000 So these were really dangerous and reckless interventions.

00:25:22.000 And today across Europe, they're curtailing their use because of a lot of the risks I warned about.

00:25:28.000 So to that extent, I'm really happy.

00:25:30.000 In this country, I can say that parents are much more aware of the risks.

00:25:35.000 And that's really what I wanted.

00:25:37.000 Yeah, they're aware of the risks.

00:25:38.000 Do you think that there is building consensus or can there be to try to shut down some of these gender affirming clinics?

00:25:45.000 And what exactly happens in these?

00:25:47.000 You talk about this in the book.

00:25:48.000 What exactly occurs in the conveyor belt or the assembly line of quote unquote gender affirming care?

00:25:54.000 Right.

00:25:55.000 So it starts with a therapist who very often parents sent a young girl to a therapist.

00:26:01.000 And this is what sort of made me think about my second book is that, you know, very often they were sent to a therapist for anxiety or depression, not for gender dysphoria, nothing to do with gender.

00:26:11.000 And they took their, you know, 11, 12 year old and decided she was high anxiety and maybe she needed to see a therapist or maybe she should talk to the school counselor.

00:26:21.000 And very often together with that counselor or mental health professional, the girl decided her problem was gender. 0.63

00:26:27.000 She decided she had gender dysphoria and the therapist immediately affirmed. 0.83

00:26:32.000 Now, there are conversion therapy bans in most states, which prohibit a therapist from disagreeing with the child's self-diagnosis.

00:26:41.000 So it's a tricky thing.

00:26:43.000 But very often, you know, the therapist did encourage the young person down that path.

00:26:48.000 And unfortunately, from there, it's very easy, even without parental approval, to start hormones and surgeries.

00:26:56.000 So in these states where there's a conversion therapy ban, the doctor's not allowed to do their job.

00:27:01.000 That's basically, I mean, if somebody comes in and they, for example, and they say, you know, I'm anorexic and I think that I'm 500 pounds and I'm going to go fast myself for the next month.

00:27:14.000 And the doctor's like, no, it's obviously you're anorexic.

00:27:17.000 Is the doctor allowed to tell that patient they're wrong?

00:27:19.000 Or do you have to affirm anorexia?

00:27:22.000 You do not have to affirm anorexia.

00:27:23.000 This was specific to LGBTQ.

00:27:26.000 And they sold it.

00:27:27.000 And look, across the political spectrum, you'll find that legislators voted for it, these bans.

00:27:33.000 It's not like it was, you know, one only one political side because it was sold under the idea that all they were banning was gay conversion therapy, which had had a really ugly history of methods that didn't work and were very cruel.

00:27:48.000 So then they said, oh, we're just banning that, but they slipped in gender identity language.

00:27:54.000 So now if you tried to convince a girl, you're not a boy, you're just having a hard time in middle school, that could run afoul.

00:28:02.000 They could argue of the conversion therapy ban.

00:28:05.000 They could argue that you were trying to convert a transgender child after being out of being transgender.

00:28:11.000 So explain to me, where did we all of a sudden have a divergence where people doctors affirm and not challenge in a clinical environment?

00:28:23.000 Isn't it the role of the physician to cure or to treat, not to affirm the ailment, especially when it comes to psychotherapy?

00:28:34.000 Right.

00:28:34.000 So the big problem is that it has been the role of therapists mostly to affirm kids and across the spectrum.

00:28:42.000 And this is what I write about in the book is in bad therapy too, is that you take a kid to a therapist.

00:28:49.000 It's not like an adult who shows up and says, I want to work on this.

00:28:53.000 I have a problem.

00:28:54.000 Like, I want to face this problem and get better.

00:28:54.000 Let's go.

00:28:57.000 An adult, a child is strong-armed by an adult into therapy.

00:29:00.000 So they show up and they're not necessarily ready to work on a problem.

00:29:05.000 It's a problem that the parents have identified.

00:29:08.000 So a therapist is put in a position of needing to pander to the kid to get their buy-in.

00:29:13.000 And very often that looks like affirmation, whether that's exaggerating your trauma of having a pet die or exaggerating the idea that you might really be a boy.

00:29:23.000 So in addition, Abigail, can you talk about how originally in the DSM, this was considered to be a mental health problem, but it is no longer in the sense where it's not considered a mental illness.

00:29:38.000 I don't really even know how they categorize it, but you're not allowed to say that, oh, this person has something wrong with them.

00:29:45.000 The problem is how we're treating that individual.

00:29:47.000 Can you help explain?

00:29:49.000 Sure.

00:29:49.000 I mean, I can try, but I'll just say it doesn't, there isn't a lot of internal coherence.

00:29:55.000 So for instance, gender dysphoria, the severe discomfort in one's biological sex, it appears in the DSM.

00:30:04.000 That's the classic psychiatry Bible.

00:30:06.000 And it's the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders.

00:30:11.000 That's the title, mental disorders.

00:30:13.000 And it's in there.

00:30:15.000 But then they go around, they sort of, the activists make a lot of headway between moving between, you know, what's actually the codes that you give insurance and what it's actually called and claiming it, no, it's a social identity and it's a minority group.

00:30:32.000 And therefore, you can never insult a minority group.

00:30:35.000 Well, of course, you shouldn't want to stigmatize a mental disorder.

00:30:38.000 There's no reason to make people feel bad.

00:30:41.000 But they sort of switch between, oh, this is a disorder that needs treatment and this is a beautiful sexual identity we should all affirm and celebrate.

00:30:51.000 So the activists tend to slip between the two and they do it for very good reason.

00:30:56.000 It's a way to avoid any criticism.

00:30:59.000 Well, and so let's also ask if there wasn't a disorder, why do you need medical interventions?

00:31:06.000 Why do you need surgery?

00:31:08.000 And so Abigail, let's talk about this.

00:31:10.000 In the last couple of years, we've seen a furtherance of the surgical interventions and talk about how a young girl could be going to see a therapist at age 13 for anxiety and she could end up on the operating table.

00:31:23.000 Is there a profit motive to get her through that conveyor belt? 0.70

00:31:28.000 Yeah, I mean, you're talking about someone who's going to become a lifetime patient.

00:31:32.000 So is there a profit motive?

00:31:33.000 Yes, but I don't tend to think the activists are largely motivated by profit specifically.

00:31:38.000 Some of them may be, but generally, they have bought into this ideology, this very pernicious mind virus that any child can be a boy or a girl, depending on their say-so, without any evidence.

00:31:51.000 And my job is to do this life-saving work of encouraging them on this path.

00:31:56.000 And that's what they've been doing.

00:31:57.000 They've been affirming them.

00:31:59.000 In the state of California, where I live, minors age 12 and up have the right to this gender-affirming care, the supposedly gender-affirmed care without parental knowledge or say or agreement.

00:32:11.000 And it's very easy in various states to get to start even with surgeries without parental permission at age 15 and up.

00:32:19.000 So, you're talking about a situation in which the activists and the activist medical establishment and the gender world has convinced doctors and others that this is an issue between a young child and her therapist or physician, and that they're allowed to go in and make these life-altering changes to her body without really any good reason, even a good, even good medical necessity.

00:32:47.000 So, they're doing a tremendous amount of damage.

00:32:50.000 And I'm just very, very happy that America has really woken up to it.

00:32:57.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

00:32:58.000 I talked to you about how horrible nutrition has become for people in our ultra-processed food society.

00:33:03.000 Truth is, it's even worse for our beloved dogs.

00:33:06.000 Seeing dog food lately, it's more like dead food.

00:33:08.000 Mr. Briggs is our best friend, and the more adventurous we are, I've realized that food is the most important thing ensuring he's healthy.

00:33:14.000 Naturopathic Dr. Dennis Black has invested everything into bringing our dog's food to life.

00:33:19.000 He created rough greens, not dog food.

00:33:21.000 It's a natural supplement to your dog's existing food, full of essential vitamins and minerals and made right here in America.

00:33:27.000 You don't have to change your dog's food.

00:33:29.000 Just adding rough greens to their existing diet will be the best decision you ever made to improve their life.

00:33:35.000 Mr. Briggs has more energy, plays longer, and is overall the best version of himself.

00:33:40.000 Dr. Black is so confident that this will change your dog's life, he is providing a free jumpstart trial bag so your dog can try it.

00:33:47.000 You just cover the shipping, head to roughgreens.com/slash kirk.

00:33:51.000 That is r-u-f-f-greens.com/slash kirk.

00:33:53.000 Go to roughgreens.com/slash kirk to grab yours today, roughgreens.com/slash kirk.

00:34:00.000 The American people are waking up to this transgender craze. 1.00

00:34:05.000 And if you check out the book Irreversible Damage and you work through it, you realize that at the root of this is a craze and a social contagion.

00:34:14.000 So, Abigail, what would you say is the parents' role here versus the political and the societal role?

00:34:22.000 And for parents that are listening for the first time, and we have several, we have a very big audience of parents, how should they prepare their children for encountering this craze?

00:34:33.000 Right.

00:34:33.000 So, the number one thing parents need in their own homes is authority with their children, which means I'm in charge.

00:34:40.000 I'm your parents.

00:34:40.000 I don't care what goes on, what other people say.

00:34:43.000 Fundamentally, I'm in charge.

00:34:45.000 And, and the second thing is, we've we have to admit, as a society, we've done a lousy job passing on our values to our kids, right?

00:34:54.000 They're showing up in college campuses, not knowing why we have free speech and not believing in it, right?

00:35:00.000 All kinds of values across American life.

00:35:02.000 We're not passing them on.

00:35:04.000 That's our job.

00:35:05.000 That's our number one job.

00:35:06.000 And yes, that includes telling kids what you actually think of gender ideology.

00:35:11.000 Don't hide that.

00:35:12.000 Sometimes good people are afraid to because they say they don't want to get involved.

00:35:16.000 Well, guess what?

00:35:17.000 There's an army of activists, including maybe teachers your kids will see, who can't wait to tell your kids what they believe.

00:35:24.000 So, you have to start by telling kids what you believe is true and what you know to be true before they get hit with all the nonsense, either in school or eventually college campus.

00:35:35.000 And then the last thing I would just say is: don't let these interlopers insert themselves between you and your kid.

00:35:41.000 Unless you absolutely need a therapist or a mental health professional, do not insert them between you and your child unless they absolutely need it.

00:35:49.000 And if they absolutely need mental health interventions, then research the therapist like you would any surgeon.

00:35:56.000 In addition, there's been a 5,000% increase in the amount of trans identifying youth.

00:36:03.000 We have seen that with proper parenting, cutting off the internet, changing passwords on phones, getting different friends groups, sometimes even moving, the trans identification just kind of fades out. 0.72

00:36:16.000 That puberty is not the problem, but puberty is the solution. 0.83

00:36:19.000 Can you talk about this, Abigail?

00:36:21.000 Sure.

00:36:22.000 Another thing that I always tell parents to do is remove for sure, get them off social media where they sit and they saturate in this identity.

00:36:30.000 You know, social media is no doubt a big problem, and it's a big vector of communicating all of these ideas from I have trauma to I'm really a boy.

00:36:40.000 I mean, it's communicating a lot of bad values and it's putting your kids in touch with a lot of bad people too.

00:36:46.000 So there's no question it has played a really ugly role.

00:36:50.000 But, you know, I interviewed this dad after my book came out.

00:36:53.000 And, you know, this is sort of a classic story.

00:36:56.000 He was a Catholic man.

00:36:57.000 He was, you know, he had let his daughter leave Catholic school because she wanted to go to an art school.

00:37:03.000 And now she was saturating this transgender identity. 1.00

00:37:07.000 She had been encouraged by her therapist.

00:37:09.000 And the man had called me because he wanted to know, well, do you have another therapist I can recommend?

00:37:14.000 And that's why I say parental authority is important because at the end of the day, you have to be willing to fight for your own kid.

00:37:22.000 Okay.

00:37:22.000 And an expert's not going to do what you're not willing to do yourself.

00:37:26.000 And passing on your own values to your kid, making sure if they're in an unhealthy environment, get them out of that environment.

00:37:34.000 I don't care if it's a fancy art school.

00:37:36.000 Get them out.

00:37:37.000 And you have to have a certain amount of confidence in your authority to do that.

00:37:41.000 And that's what I, you know, hope to encourage parents to have.

00:37:44.000 Abigail, you're doing such wonderful work.

00:37:46.000 Anything you want to plug in addition on your website, any other ways that our audience can support you?

00:37:51.000 Oh, I'm on Twitter at Abigail Schreier.

00:37:53.000 And, you know, I have a sub stack, The Truth Fairy, available.

00:37:57.000 So that's where I often publish.

00:37:59.000 Check out bad therapy and irreversible damage.

00:38:02.000 Get them as a combo pack.

00:38:04.000 Thank you so much, Abigail.

00:38:05.000 Great work.

00:38:06.000 Thank you, Charlie.

00:38:07.000 Thanks for everything you do.

00:38:08.000 Thank you.

00:38:08.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:38:10.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:38:12.000 Thanks so much for listening and God bless.

00:38:17.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - April 09, 2024

How Bad Therapy Wrecks Children

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript