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Jan. 30, 2023 - Conspirituality
05:45
Bonus Sample: Psychotherapy in the Age of TikTok Conspirituality (w/Alessia Caputo)

What do you do  when your psychotherapy clients suffer from conspiracy theory anxiety? What do you do when the conspirituality-based therapy advice they get from TikTok is compelling, but also misleading? Toronto-based Registered Psychotherapist Alessia Caputo joins Matthew for this Listener Story installment to discuss the changing therapeutic landscape, in the office and online. -- -- --Support us on PatreonPre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | JulianOriginal music by EarthRise SoundSystem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello Conspirituality Podcast listeners.
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Were you ever in the situation in which somebody that you either were friendly with or colleagues with was undergoing some kind of mental crisis?
I don't know if you can speak about this and maintain confidentiality, but I'm wondering if you had that moment in which a person, in your view, needed a kind of help that they might have also been refusing because they believed that their crisis was actually a developmental bridge.
Yes, so this is, I guess, it's a more personal anecdote.
I won't say too much just for the confidentiality of that person, but it was that exact situation where, you know, I don't have psychosis, I'm talking to my spirit guides, they're telling me XYZ, I'm having these, like, dreams predicting, you know, all these horrible things in the world, and then it almost sounds like the thing about, I guess, my experience with psychosis is Things don't often sound completely wrong.
It almost sounds totally real, and then there's like one or two little things or parts of the story where you go, oh, okay, you know, maybe this is someone who's experiencing hallucinations or delusions.
And so, you know, I found that same kind of thread in having conversation with this person, and then we got to a point where it was like, oh, and then I predicted this, and then this thing happened, and Pizzagate, and you know, whatever else.
I'm wondering about that and whether you can, over time with enough experience, if you can actually suss out a threshold there where a person's, I mean, the difficulty in speaking about whether or not somebody is accessing their spirit guides is that we might get into a cultural territory that's really sensitive, but I'm wondering if there is a safe zone where we're discussing speaking with spirit guides that then becomes an unsafe zone at a very particular point at which the person obviously is just parroting conspiracy theory views.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like, I've never really thought that there might be a way of making that distinction, but that might be really helpful actually.
I think that's super important because even what comes to mind is one of the therapy modalities I practice.
It's called internal family systems.
And they have a belief that, you know, when we connect inside with those different parts of us, that sometimes people experience this kind of like a guide.
I think they use the term guide, maybe not a spirit guide.
I could be incorrect about that, but that we have, you know, these, these experiences that happen to us.
And so it's not for me to say, Oh, that's not true at all.
But it's just to watch when are we getting into a point where This would be, I guess for me, it's looking through a diagnostic lens.
Is this, you know, from a place of what would fit as a hallucination or delusion?
I think a lot of things could and aren't, so it's really tricky territory to navigate.
Yeah, and I guess your own education with regard to What is in the zeitgeist in terms of conspirituality is going to be a real good guidepost for that because as soon as you hear somebody talk about, I don't know, Adrenochrome or Morgellons or, you know, as soon as the keywords come out, you might have this very, very clear
You know, sense that, oh, we've crossed over into a territory in which the person isn't actually accessing any kind of internal stuff.
They've been propagandized, and that's torturous to them.
I often ask, too, where folks are hearing about this, and the saddest part is it's often from TikTok.
We are totally going to get to TikTok, but more generally, can you just describe the main themes of conspiracism or conspirituality that show up in your office?
Sure, there's definitely ones that showed up in my life as well, but the ones I'm seeing specifically in my office are this idea of kind of hyper-individualism, like you're the one that's capable of creating, maintaining your reality, it's up to you, you know, it's up to me to manifest it.
I just listened to one of the last listener stories that you did, Matthew, with S-Factor, and what really stuck out to me was this one part that you played in a clip Where I think her name was Sheila was going on saying, this can be healing if you choose that.
And that's, that's so dangerous.
It's so, and I don't, I don't, you know, I'm, I'm trained in understanding and listening to the kind of language that people use and the intention behind it.
So hearing that is like, imagine if one of my clients came and I'm like, Hey, therapy can work if you want it to work.
That's so horrible.
And what if it doesn't work for someone?
Therapy doesn't work, you know, for everyone.
And some modalities are better for others than others would be.
So, you know, so much about these things are really about our environment.
You know what, though, Alessia, if you were able to, like, pull that off, you would be able to avoid accountability in all areas of your life.
And wouldn't that be great?
That'd be amazing.
I wouldn't have to try.
I would just, I would simply just exist.
I wouldn't even have to try.
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