Brief: Is Jordan Peterson Really a Licensed Psychologist? (w/Dr. Taslim Alani-Verjee)
In November, the College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO)—through which Jordan Peterson must be licensed in order to treat private clients—opened an investigation into complaints over his Twitter behavior. A few days ago, he publishing the disciplinary paper trail to Twitter, but failed to properly redact the names of complainants.
Mystery questions:
Can you shitpost at public servants, dox complainants, misgender people, call doctors who provide gender-affirming care “monsters,” cavort with fascists, and fat shame random swimsuit models to millions of people on Twitter and continue to be a licensed psychologist in the province of Ontario?
Dr. Taslim Alani-Verjee joins me to do some 101 work on JP’s commitments to the profession that gives him clout and credibility. She is a clinical psychologist and the Director and Founder of Silm Centre for Mental Health. She teaches psychology and ethics at Adler Graduate Professional School, and is adjunct professor at Lakehead. Some of her concentration areas include intimate partner violence, stigma, social justice, and cultural competence.
Show Notes
CPOntario vs J B Peterson
Howard Levitt: What's happening to Jordan Peterson could happen to anyone now
When Your Psychologist Goes Viral: How Jordan Peterson's Fame Affected His Private Practice
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Hello everybody, Matthew here with a Conspirituality Brief called, Is Jordan Peterson Really a Licensed Psychologist?
with guest Dr. Theslam Alaniverji.
Remember that you can catch us on Apple Podcast Subscriptions, you can catch us on Twitter, Instagram, and Patreon, and you can pre-order our book through the link at the bottom of the show notes for this episode.
A crucial topic on our podcast is something we call charismatic overreach.
Now this happens when an authority credentialed and licensed in one area becomes an influencer in an unrelated area, spurred on by audience capture, online funding, contrarian ecstasies, and perhaps even an aspiration to grandiose spiritual leadership.
We saw it happen blatantly with people like Dr. Northrup reaching beyond gynecology to comment on vaccines and aliens, Dr. Zach Bush oscillating between claims about gut health and sermons about transcending death, and Dr. Kelly Brogan going beyond the scope of psychiatry to pretend she understands COVID.
We actually wrote a whole chapter on charismatic overreach in our upcoming book.
Now, Peterson is charismatic, overreach, personified.
He's a clinical psychologist with a reasonable understanding of Jung, who presents himself as an expert on trans people, Marxism, geopolitics, climate modeling, who should be on magazine covers and bathing suits, and God.
Now, currently, the unstoppable force of his improvised demagoguery is meeting the immovable object of his college's commitments.
Now, in November, the College of Psychologists of Ontario, I'm going to use the acronym CPO going forward, and this is the body through which he must be licensed in order to treat private clients in Ontario, they opened an investigation into complaints over his Twitter behavior.
And we'll look at the specifics in a bit, but I want to note that he's responded in the least collegial way possible by publishing the entire paper trail to Twitter, but then failing to properly redact the names of complainants.
He seems to be under the impression that Twitter will decide whether he's contravened the Psychology Act of Ontario.
Then his personal lawyer, Howard Levitt, published an opinion piece in the Financial Post defending his client, but without disclosing that Peterson was his client.
So question, can you shitpost at public servants?
Can you misgender people?
Can you call doctors who provide gender-affirming care monsters?
Can you cavort with fascists?
Can you fat-shame random swimsuit models to millions of people on Twitter and continue to be a licensed psychologist in the province of Ontario?
Dr. Theslam Alani Vergy joins me to do some 101 work on Peterson's commitments to the CPO.
Theslam is Peterson's colleague, also a clinical psychologist, and she's the director and founder of the Silm Center for Mental Health.
She teaches psychology and ethics at Adler Graduate Professional School, and she's an adjunct professor at Lakehead.
Some of her concentration areas include intimate partner violence, stigma, social justice, and cultural competence.
Welcome to Conspirituality Podcast, Dr. Theslam.
Thanks for having me, Matthew.
Okay, Jordan Peterson, your colleague.
If we wanted to make this a really short interview and you were to encapsulate, maybe in two sentences, your personal and professional feelings about Peterson continuing to hold a license to practice psychology in Ontario, what would you say?
The differences between the personal and professional, while complicated, need to be consistent, right?
We can't go around kind of saying one thing in our personal lives and practicing another in our professional.
And when I think about Dr. Peterson, I feel discouraged and disappointed.
Not so much in the college, the college is going to do what the college is going to do, but rather that someone, a colleague of mine, would feel so comfortable and confident saying the things that he's saying, making the statements, and continuing to hold that license and believing that he is still putting his clients and the care for others first.
Okay, that's a great encapsulation.
I think we can get into the weeds of the actual complaints that he happened to publish in PDF form to Google Drive on January 4th.
It's a PDF that contains all of his correspondence with the CPO.
Now, he's since deleted it, but not before I downloaded it.
And as discovered by Jesse Brown of Candidaland, it appears that he tried to redact the names and identifiers of complainants, but he used a vector box tool that can be removed.
So, Peterson essentially doxed his complainants.
And now he writes that he believes he's within his rights to release the correspondence.
Is he in violation of the Psychology Act or the college's rules for this alone?
Because it seems like he's attempting to bully and intimidate his own college.
And is that okay?
Never okay to bully and intimidate, right?
But what we're really talking about here is care for a person and the dignity of a person.
when a complaint is supposed to be confidential and is supposed to be kept
private, when we release that information or when we by mistake release that
information, that's still a violation of that. Now from what I understand Dr.
Peterson is claiming that none of these complaints are from actual clinical
clients and I would take the stance that it doesn't actually matter. If the
information was conveyed to him and was meant to be kept private, then it was
meant to be kept private. And the moment those names are released that is an act
of intimidation, right?
We're letting the public know that these are the individuals that are making complaints against me.
Come at it, world!
And in the same way, doing what he has done in response to the college, I am of the stance that the language that's being used, the accusations that are being made towards the college in response to these complaints is an act of manipulation and it is an act of bullying.
We could turn to the complaints.
The first one comes from a person who says that Peterson is suggesting on Twitter that a Twitter user expressing concern over the environmental impacts of population is quote free to leave at any point unquote.
And many people read this as an invitation for the person to die by suicide.
Now, the important context here is that Peterson is on record as a climate change skeptic.
Now, do you read this tweet as making light of suicide?
Unfortunately, I do.
Especially within the context of the tweet where we're talking about overcrowding and overpopulation of Earth.
If you're telling someone they're free to leave, that's not you're free to leave the room.
Within the context of that statement, it's you're free to leave the planet and there's no other way to do that.
And so, yes, I definitely interpret that as making light of suicide.
And I find it to be a really disrespectful comment to be made.
Now, are there provisions in the Code turning to a slightly broader topic that dissuade licensed psychologists from soapboxing on scientific matters beyond the discipline?
Because he's doing that all the time in relation to COVID, trans people, and then also the climate.
As professionals, our ethics teach us that we should really be using our title as psychologists to talk about things related to mental health.
The title of psychologist holds a lot of clout and so if we're going to go around representing ourselves as psychologists, we better know what we're talking about and we better only talk about the things that we know about as a psychologist.
Now, I can go around as thusly and personally talking about whatever I want to, but the moment I represent myself as a psychologist, I am responsible for representing the things that I know and that are within my scope of practice.
Now, what makes this What's a little bit complicated is that the CPO, or the College of Psychologists of Ontario, is quite narrow in what they define as scope of practice.
So this is, can you work with adolescents?
Can you work with eating disorders?
And that's how they define that scope.
But in that broader sense, the code of ethics teaches us that we are responsible for what we say, and we are responsible for only saying things that we are absolutely certain of, or then sharing the doubt and uncertainty of what we are saying.
Complaint number two.
Peterson intervenes on Twitter again in support of the Ottawa Trucker Convoy and he does it by questioning, he does it in a lot of ways, but the tweet in question from this complainant is that he's questioning whether the Children's Aid Society should dare to look into whether the children who were at the occupation living in truck cabs Should be safely removed prior to the police clearing the occupation.
Now the complainant pointed out that this compromises Peterson's judgment as a mandatory reporter on child safety.
Does this have merit in your view?
And what are the implications of a prominent CPO member implying that the Children's Aid Society is unfit for purpose?
That's a great question.
So I think that this is also complicated, right?
When we think about the systems and organizations that exist in our world, such as the Children's Aid Society, none of them are perfect.
And so there's always room to be critical of the systems that exist and the organizations
that exist.
And at the same time, we need to recognize what their purpose is.
And when we have a professional responsibility of mandatory reporting, it doesn't really
matter what you feel about it.
You have to do what you need to do.
And so if there is any reason to believe that there is a child that is unsafe, we are not
investigators.
We are not supposed to go in and figure it out.
We are supposed to keep children and vulnerable people safe.
And so Dr. Peterson questioning the CAS and questioning why CAS would even need to get involved in a situation like that makes me wonder whether He is clouded in his judgment around the functioning of the CES, but also what may have been happening to those children in those trucks.
Because regardless of the politics of the situation, and regardless of what's actually happening to the children in the trucks, and whether they're being cared for properly or not, The issue was whether or not CAS should intervene to protect them from the, you know, the circumstance of the police raid.
And so, that's the issue.
It's not really about, you know, should they have been there, should their parents have taken them there or not.
They were there, and there's a standoff situation, and then there was an urgent need for them to be made safe, right?
Absolutely, and I think CAS is the body to ensure that, right?
And so if you're going to question CAS and CAS' need to be a part of that, then there's something that's disconnected in all of that.
Alright, so complaint number three.
The complainant writes in to describe Peterson's appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience for about four hours, doing many unhinged things, and the main comments for which he was lambasted, you know, across the globe really, had to do with Climate change denial, especially questioning whether or not the modeling for climate change holds predictive power.
He also claimed that death by starvation doesn't happen and that capitalism is the key to solving poverty.
Are generally strange, wild statements on a huge platform grounds for discipline by the CPO, even if their merits can be debated?
And if so, why?
So this goes back to scope, right?
When we are taking on the responsibility of being a psychologist, we are taking the responsibility on of Primarily, respect for the dignity of people.
And so, if we're going to go and talk about things that are not within the scope of a psychologist, and try to bring up research that we don't really understand, or potentially don't understand, there is the risk of conveying misinformation to the public.
And when you're a trusted figure, you ought not to be conveying misinformation to the public.
Now, the way that Dr. Peterson has gone about this also makes it sound as though Either he knows a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff or he doesn't, right?
And I don't know what's going on in his mind but it's surprising and I would be surprised if he were actually an expert in all of these things and somehow managed to connect all of it to his scope of psychology because it is quite a lot of information and so one might wonder how much of this is coming from what he actually knows versus Positions that he's taken without a whole lot of background information and yet is stating them with confidence.
Now, when it comes down to brass tacks in discussion with the college, would he be able to claim that he was speaking about the dignity of people by resisting, let's say, a political philosophy, whether or not he understands it or not?
This is a main thing that he does is that he will say that, you know, postmodern neo-Marxism, or however he frames it, is an assault upon human dignity.
Is there wiggle room there?
I suppose there is always wiggle room, unfortunately.
I mean, I think freedom of speech is important.
And if that is the sole argument that we are taking from what Dr. Peterson is trying to say, it's not a bad one.
However, the way that he is going about doing it, at least from the little that I have been exposed to, it's at the expense of other people's well-being.
And so when we are doing things at the expense of other people's well-being,
especially those who experience vulnerability and marginalization, then we are not respecting the dignity of people.
And our responsibility is always to think about those who are most vulnerable first,
not those who have the privilege and the safety first.
and I'm going to go to the next slide.
And so if what he is expressing and what he is stating is not protecting those who are most vulnerable, which we all know it is not, then there's something wrong with that.
Now, speaking of respect for the vulnerable, the complainant also raises the issue of Peterson's admitted mental health and addiction crises.
And specifically, the complainant, who sounds like they themselves might be a mental health professional, they write, quote, I have my own concerns about Dr. Peterson's mental health status.
Because, during the Rogan interview, there is ample evidence in the hour I reviewed of his being disinhibited, tangential, circumlocutory, and grandiose.
Now, are licensed psychologists required to recuse themselves from public life if they are struggling with their own mental health issues?
And if so, how is that monitored and regulated?
So, absolutely.
Absolutely.
If we are not in a good mental state or physical state, then it is important for us to acknowledge that and to take a step back until we are in a spot where we can come back to our work.
That's not just within the public sphere, but it's also within our clinical work.
With Dr. Peterson, I can't comment on his mental state, but if there are concerns that are active and ongoing, it is a psychologist's responsibility to acknowledge this and to take the steps necessary to make sure that They are not continuing to work and potentially put others at risk because of their compromised well-being.
Speculation from the public on Jordan Peterson's mental state has been rampant since his various crises, arcs.
Now, I'm wondering if the college can take the initiative That's a great question.
So my understanding is that the college can act in a few different ways.
like that or does the process depend upon complaints from clients or the
public? That's a great question. So my understanding is that the college can
act in a few different ways. One of those is that if the college is of the
impression that there is something going on with a member that is compromising
the members objectivity, then they are allowed to intervene without complaints
Now, without being in the public sphere, I don't know how the college would necessarily have their eyes on that, but Dr. Peterson is in the public sphere, so they could technically intervene without those complaints being made.
Okay, complaint number four.
Back to the Ottawa occupation.
Peterson makes a series of aggressive tweets directed at liberal consultant Gerald Butz, who was expressing opinions about the occupation and what should be done in terms of public health.
And in one of those tweets, he called Butz a prick.
And these tweets were also wrapped up in insinuations that Prime Minister Trudeau was a liar, an authoritarian, a puppet of the globalists, and so on.
What does a CPO have to say about hyper-politicized invective from members?
As someone who teaches ethics and believes that ethics are very important, I am of the belief that we are allowed to be political.
Be political because we're people.
We're allowed to have stances and our stances matter.
Having said that, it is never okay to be disrespectful to other people.
So, calling people a prick, calling people a puppet, Accusing them of being liars without having any kind of evidence to back that up.
Those are accusations and they are not professional.
So yes, Dr. Peterson is allowed to have political stances.
He is, however, potentially acting unprofessional in the way that he is going about it.
I think with all of that also comes Some stances that go against public health recommendations and that's also problematic because those are again spreading misinformation and are potentially putting people at risk.
Now, in that same sequence of Twitter activity, he called Ottawa Councillor Catherine McKinney, you appalling, self-righteous, moralizing thing, unquote.
This was in response to McKinney supporting residents of her ward who were under intense stress from the occupation where the horns are blaring 24-7 and, you know, food services are stopped and there are disabled people who can't get to their appointments and so on.
Now, McKinney is trans and non-binary.
So, same question here about attacking public servants, but with a little extra here.
What are the implications of him appearing to mock McKinney's gender identity, according to the CPO?
So again, I would call that disrespectful and unprofessional.
And when we think about that in terms of our code of ethics, it's unacceptable.
It's unacceptable to compromise the well-being of someone.
And that's what bullying does, right?
That's what name-calling does.
It affects a person's well-being.
That goes completely against everything that we're supposed to be doing as psychologists and mental health professionals.
Now, of course, this is all related to his harassment of Elliot Page as well and his charge that doctors who provided him with gender-affirming surgery are criminals.
That crossed the Twitter guidelines threshold and got him suspended for a while.
Is there something, I mean, you're using the language of respect and dignity, but is there some other guidelines that specifically protect classes of people within the CPO?
So, within the CPO, my understanding is no, there isn't.
There is language around harassment, but that's generally in reference to sexual harassment.
There is a statement around other types of harassment as well.
And so, the way in which Dr. Peterson is He's putting himself into the conversations, right?
No one has started these conversations with him.
He's kind of just, who knows why, but he's finding a way to participate in them.
That is harassment.
That goes against what the CPO standards of practice tell us is acceptable.
Now again, what makes it tricky is that the CPO is generally regulating our clinical practice.
But for someone like Dr. Peterson, who has integrated clinical practice with the public sphere, His entire presence is as a psychologist at this point.
There is no differentiation.
He identifies himself as a psychologist.
He affiliates himself with U of T, in which he's affiliated as a psychologist.
So there aren't any barriers or boundaries there.
If he's practicing as a psychologist, no matter what he's doing, and regardless of whether it is clinical, he's engaging in harassment and bullying.
And that goes against the CPO.
Yeah, and I mean I think it's probably, there's even more weight now to his CPO designation given the fact that he resigned from his tenured position at the university.
So it's not like he has some sort of like academic role that he can put forward as, you know, this is how I'm acting.
He really, this really is only his only credential at this point.
Now, the last complaint that I wanted to look at I think was very Well reported, and it was very hurtful to many, many people.
He attacked the physical appearance of Yumi Nu, who's a 24-year-old swimsuit model who just happens to be fat.
And his bizarre tweet suggested that by featuring her on the cover of Sports Illustrated, he was being forced into somehow accepting that she was supposed to be attractive to him personally.
And the tweet unleashed like a torrent of fat-shaming vitriol that was aimed at new but then also everyone who works in the fat acceptance movement.
How do you view this through the lens of the CPO code and maybe even, you know, through your own eyes as a practicing psychologist?
So first, I mean, I have lots of feelings about it, right?
But when I think about the CPO Code of Ethics, other than really thinking about how we are supposed to embody what it means to be a psychologist, which means There's caring for others, which means having professional objectivity, which means, of course, not engaging in harassment.
There's also the CPA, this is the Canadian Psychological Association, and their code of ethics.
And this is much more expansive and really does go into what it means to be a good person and a psychologist.
And when we go around insulting other people and fat shaming, again, no one asked Dr. Peterson to comment on this.
He kind of just initiates it.
There is absolutely no space for this kind of disrespect.
It doesn't embody what it means to be a psychologist.
Now, he can have these opinions personally.
He can even, if he felt the need to, which I don't know why he would, but if he felt the need to bring up research that suggests that You know, there are certain types of bodies that are more attractive, sure, that's fine as well, but to go and accuse, I guess, a magazine of trying to convince him that he's supposed to change his stance on what he is attracted to, there's no reason for it, there's no space for it, and it really just
puts people at risk. And he's using his voice and the power that comes with his voice to put others at harm.
I think the implication that I hear in his credential speaking in that tweet is that the fat acceptance movement
is some kind of psychological delusion. That he's calling an entire demographic that supports body positivity.
Um...
He's almost diagnosing the culture.
And maybe this is part of the big picture here is that the spirit of the CPO is to say, Don't speak about what you don't know and certainly don't diagnose people you haven't spoken with, like the Goldwater Rule, and certainly don't diagnose the culture en masse.
Is that the right territory, do you think?
Yeah, absolutely.
So we don't want to go around suggesting that people are unwell without really knowing them.
We don't want to also make assumptions about people's beliefs without understanding the person.
And regardless of whether someone belongs to community or not, we know that within community differences are huge.
Any kind of stance around the fat acceptance or body acceptance movement.
And the state of people's mental health within that movement, like there's no validity to that.
Having said that, there is research that does explain how people are found to be more attractive and why they're found to be more attractive and body proportions and facial symmetry and all that good stuff and that is fine.
And yet, We are all going to find different people attractive.
And so if you don't find the person on that magazine cover attractive, leave it alone, right?
There's no need to say anything about it or do anything about it.
Just leave it alone and look for the next magazine cover.
Yeah, it's almost as if the culture is Peterson's client, and he really doesn't have good boundaries.
He really has difficulties with transference and countertransference, and it's very difficult for him to not make all kinds of pronouncements.
And that must be very bizarre for you to watch.
It is very bizarre and it's an interesting thing because as a professional personally, I'm trying to find a way to make my voice be heard on a larger platform and I'm so grateful to have this opportunity and yet every single move that I make has generally been intentional and careful and thought out because I know what it means to be a psychologist and I know the responsibility that comes with that and I never ever want it to be compromised.
And so to see Dr. Peterson make the statements that he's making and again initiating them all on his own and the commentary that just comes with that, it's a very interesting thing and it's a very scary thing.
Feslim, thank you so much for your time this morning.
I really hope to have you back, and thank you for all of your good work.
