I have come across the opposite view regarding thought suppression and emotion regulation, and I think he might be overlooking the behavioural component of CBT.
I think of BA for example, behavioural activation if I am not mistaken has proven to be very effective for depression.
I appreciated listening to his perspective, but I think he overlooks goal orientated and outcome focused therapies.
I agree 100%, and I did tell him so in the conversation, I said the part of CBT that we DO have empirical evidence works, is to motivate into action and away from self-rumination. I should also have mentioned exposure therapy of course.
Thank you for this informative and insightful discussion Dr. Spier. I would love to know Dr. Orr’s thoughts on Thomistic psychology as those insights into the human soul and psychological condition appear to be timelessly relevant.
You should consider interviewing Christin McIntyre, MD. I think her discussion with you regarding mental health and Thomistic psychology would appeal to all of your subscribers.
Thank you for the interview—it was thought-provoking, and I’ve been reflecting on it since. Philosophy is a subject I’ve always loved. I believe it should be taught in schools alongside maths and science. Not because it provides us with concrete answers, but because it teaches us to ask the right questions—often the ones without clear answers. In that way, philosophy becomes a tool for wisdom.
I can sense how important this conversation is to you, particularly in relation to psychology and how we must question widely accepted beliefs and resist simply following what is now fashionable in psychology. Your guest raised some valid points, especially around the subjective nature of psychology and the absence of empirical evidence in many of its practices. But this critique can just as easily be applied to religion, which is also deeply subjective and based more on faith than tangible proof.
That said, I don’t deny the value of religion. In many cultures, it provides a moral compass and can inspire people to be better human beings. Of course, it can also be used to justify harm—but on balance, I think its benefits often outweigh its downsides.
The challenge arises for those who do not believe in a higher power and instead turn to psychology for support. In doing so, they may replace a centuries-old framework of moral and ethical guidance with the insights of a single individual. The danger, I think, lies in the potential for subjectivity. A psychologist—like anyone—can impose personal biases, even unconsciously, onto a vulnerable person seeking help.
I’ve had firsthand experience with this. During marriage counselling, a psychologist openly shared her own painful story, and later, in private, offered me advice that clearly came from her own unresolved hurt. It was a sobering moment: I had placed my trust in someone to help me navigate a deeply personal challenge, only to realize I was receiving filtered guidance through someone else’s lens.
I don’t pretend to have the answers. In fact, I think the recognition that I don’t know is what helps me remain open-minded and grounded. I try to see things from many perspectives and hold my own views lightly, knowing they can change.
One of my concerns about the current state of psychology is the shift from understanding why a condition exists to simply treating it. This can elevate the psychologist into the role of “healer” or even “savior”—an unrealistic and sometimes dangerous expectation. In truth, healing has to come from within the individual. For some, that healing might not be possible, but symptom management and compassionate guidance can still be incredibly valuable.
When it comes to conditions like schizophrenia or personality disorders, the diagnostic insights of psychology are vital. But for complex trauma—like C-PTSD, which I live with—I’ve found that traditional therapeutic methods, particularly those focused on repeatedly revisiting the trauma, are often more harmful than helpful. Journaling, memoir writing, and even engaging with communities online can exacerbate symptoms rather than relieve them.
In my own experience, it wasn’t the clinical psychologist who helped me most, but a mental health support worker. She listened when I needed to be heard, but always gently redirected my focus toward the future. She encouraged me to dream again, to take baby steps toward a goal, and in doing so, gave me a sense of hope. After those sessions, I left feeling lighter—not heavier.
Perhaps this is what’s missing in many clinical settings: a human element, grounded in empathy, encouragement, and hope. And I understand this kind of emotional labor can be draining, especially for those trained to approach care from a more analytical or diagnostic angle.
I do wonder whether psychologists are always aware of the limits of their role. Sometimes, the best support might not come from therapy, but from community, family, purpose—or, for some, faith. Yet the system tends to offer recurring appointments and a “client” label, regardless of what the person truly needs.
I say all this with deep respect for the complexity of the field and for the honesty in your interview. The topics you explored—psychology, philosophy, and religion—are emotionally charged, and you navigated them with intelligence and curiosity even if I did not agree entirely with your guest. I hope my reflections come across in the same spirit.
Thank you for this thoughtful and earnest comment Paul, I appreciate it more than you know. I am glad to hear that you found someone who gave you hope and helped you towards a brighter future. It sounds like she applied methods I use in CBT rather than anything related to trauma, which fits with the issues I have with the how this new diagnosis is handled. The development of which is exactly the result our problem with psychology and the inflated importance of psychiatrists and psychologists. If the field was handled with more humility and understanding of their limitations, we wouldn’t be seeing the expansion of the diagnostic system or the mistreatment of people within. The help you got sounds exactly like that which people get from pastoral care workers, to whom I have frequently referred people. I think if clergy and religion worked properly, fewer people would suffer and more would be saved. My disagreement with Dr Orr is that clergy aren’t giving people what they need because they are pandering to the woke ideology, losing their essence and attraction in the process, and leaving more people at the mercy of psychology. And we see now that it’s no good replacement for religion.
Faith is something we have to be brought up in, it needs practice, doesn’t show up by itself, it’s not something we are born with, that we either have or we don’t. It’s incredibly difficult to produce later in life, which is why it occurs in people who have experienced something incredible and miraculous, like near-death, cancer, psychedelics etc.
You say: “But this critique can just as easily be applied to religion”
To which I would say; the difference is that religion isn’t pretending to be a science the way psychology claims to be. It’s open about the fact that you have to have faith that theres a divinity. Precisely BECAUSE you will not be provided proof until the afterlife.
Thanks Hannah, and please keep doing what you are doing, especially exposing the deeply troubling feminist attitudes that are permeating society. As someone who has been exposed to the damage it causes, it is nice to see people not afraid to ask the right questions.
Good morning. I had to listen to the second half of this program twice to make sure I understood the proposal you seem to agree on, which is that religion is the solution to the problems of the "secular" world, meaning, the world. I feel like someone who just had some soot dumped on my carpet and the solution is the Electrolux sold by the guy who dumped the ashes. How the problem is defined will lead to a better understanding of the solution.
Your discussion omits the problems caused, by which I mean in psyche and in society, by religious notions like sin. Instead, we hear "confess your sins." This could have been a sermon from 1825 rather than 2025...which proposes a kind of orthodoxy that has itself not been evaluated for its risk factors, and applicability to an individual; and does not take into account the radical changes of the environment that humans have lived through since the first telegraph signal moved an idea at the speed of light in the 1840s.
So not one idea here about how we are sitting in an electrified world, facing hundreds of cameras a day, overwhelmed by "information" and "data" and being turned INTO information and data...not a single notion of thought itself being outsourced and synthesized...humanity is reeling from this...we have not stabilized ourselves from the previous wave upon wave of technological advance when we are now having synthetic thought thrust upon us as the "new god" which affects every person on Earth whatever may be their beliefs.
I think from a theological standpoint the most disturbing thing about this discussion is the omission of the human creature as an inherently creative entity, capable of healing, capable of its own quest for meaning. Instead, we get "join a conservative religious movement and learn how to obey." I heard that correctly, yes? Obey whom?
I am wondering...how did I listen to a long sermon by a Christian cleric that did not once allude to the Inner Teacher...the Holy Spirit...the inner connection to what some call god?
But rather, to do exactly what all forms of electrical technology from telegraph to artificial intelligence do, which is take awareness out of its inner locus, and turn humans into tribal beings, unraveling the inner quest...
I believe I heard references to the claimed dichotomy between the sinful and immoral and incorrect "secular" state of being versus the moral, good, structured religious state of being. Have we considered whether this is a valid categorization of experience? And this will take us back to the flourishing times of the 1950s?
You cannot be serious presenting this thought unquestioned...the 1950s, dominated by television, the Cold War, the development of the hydrogen bomb, the Red Scare, the Pink Scare and the synthesis or proliferation of every chemical or chemical category that we are drowning in today -- the hormone disruptors that are driving both the cancer epidemic and what you dismiss as "transitioning." Funny you could agree to that and blame it on some form of, um, misguided thinking or leftist politics and not examine or even consider for a moment the nature of the environment where it's happening?
I heard no discussion of the contrast between belief and faith; between false knowledge and understanding; no discussion of the source of thought and consciousness.
The message of this religious sermon was "come to the church!" and not "your life is a journey to the awareness and the creativity of god, who/which is within you, which is the only place it can be."
We find ourselves as individuals and as a species where we are today — utterly overwhelmed with the ground of being and of consciousness collapsing beneath us, wearing the skin suit of not of religion but of personhood when in truth our personhood is being outsourced to zeros and ones...
And Hannah, did you really say you want to breach the sanctity of the consulting room with CAMERAS and MICROPHONES to enforce therapists recommending that people seek out religion as the solution to their problems?
Seriously? Or were you just kidding? Who are you people?
This comment is beneath you Eric and I ask you don’t write anything regarding the 7th here.
As for your other comment, I will say this: it’s all well and good to claim everyone has their own personal God when it doesn’t matter and life is going your way. When my people were in camps, when my people were hostages, it was the traditions and the rituals that kept them going. When the going gets tough, you need faith that there’s the God above- that’s why it’s commandment 1 and 2. And it’s when we lose that as a society that the going gets tough.
I went to Buchenwald and spent two days there, and a week in Erfurt, going through the ruins. In Buchenwald, there were intellectuals of every stripe and religion; communists and professors and photographers, not captured for their religious views. In Paris, gay people of every religion disappeared from the Marais.
Every other house in Paris has a Holocaust plaque on it and not all have the Star of David. At Auschwitz, there is a touching (devastating) memorial to the Sinti and Romany people, who were basically exterminated successfully (there were a few survivors). It is because I am educated in the Holocaust and continued my education through travel and interviews that I know what Never Again means.
Never Again means...Never Again. And that is right now.
Your guest is a Christian cleric. In Christian theology, the Holy Spirit is the part of God that people connect with directly. That was the message of Jesus. This is not about "a personal religion" or made up version of God. It's what Jesus said to his disciples at the last supper.
As pertains to astrology, Jesus references it directly. To investigate astrology is not to "believe anything" but rather to follow the direct teachings of Jesus, who to the Christians is God. From the Gospel of Luke:
The Return of the Son of Man
24 They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations. And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. 25 There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among the nations, bewildered by the roaring of the sea and the surging of the waves. 26 Men will faint from fear and anxiety over what is coming upon the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.…
PS — Dr Orr, you mentioned that the Jewish community pulled together after 10/7 — but not one whisper or plea for mercy and compassion for the unfolding genocide in the former holy land? What kind of Christian are you?
You should read Dr Tomas Szar's book, titled exactly that. 'The myth of mental illness'.
*wow typos Thomas Szasz
Yes love him!
Thanks for sharing,
I have come across the opposite view regarding thought suppression and emotion regulation, and I think he might be overlooking the behavioural component of CBT.
I think of BA for example, behavioural activation if I am not mistaken has proven to be very effective for depression.
I appreciated listening to his perspective, but I think he overlooks goal orientated and outcome focused therapies.
All the best
I agree 100%, and I did tell him so in the conversation, I said the part of CBT that we DO have empirical evidence works, is to motivate into action and away from self-rumination. I should also have mentioned exposure therapy of course.
I liked the fact that you gave him space to talk, gave me the chance to understand his position.
Thank you for this informative and insightful discussion Dr. Spier. I would love to know Dr. Orr’s thoughts on Thomistic psychology as those insights into the human soul and psychological condition appear to be timelessly relevant.
You should consider interviewing Christin McIntyre, MD. I think her discussion with you regarding mental health and Thomistic psychology would appeal to all of your subscribers.
Please consider her, you won’t be disappointed.
Here is a sample: https://youtu.be/B1GWnRmS-qw?si=zEM1q0Q_wg0VEZyM
Thank you Gregory! I will have a look!
Yes, I have an interest in virtue ethics in counseling, and I’m sure the “Thomistic” discussion would address.
Hi Hannah,
Thank you for the interview—it was thought-provoking, and I’ve been reflecting on it since. Philosophy is a subject I’ve always loved. I believe it should be taught in schools alongside maths and science. Not because it provides us with concrete answers, but because it teaches us to ask the right questions—often the ones without clear answers. In that way, philosophy becomes a tool for wisdom.
I can sense how important this conversation is to you, particularly in relation to psychology and how we must question widely accepted beliefs and resist simply following what is now fashionable in psychology. Your guest raised some valid points, especially around the subjective nature of psychology and the absence of empirical evidence in many of its practices. But this critique can just as easily be applied to religion, which is also deeply subjective and based more on faith than tangible proof.
That said, I don’t deny the value of religion. In many cultures, it provides a moral compass and can inspire people to be better human beings. Of course, it can also be used to justify harm—but on balance, I think its benefits often outweigh its downsides.
The challenge arises for those who do not believe in a higher power and instead turn to psychology for support. In doing so, they may replace a centuries-old framework of moral and ethical guidance with the insights of a single individual. The danger, I think, lies in the potential for subjectivity. A psychologist—like anyone—can impose personal biases, even unconsciously, onto a vulnerable person seeking help.
I’ve had firsthand experience with this. During marriage counselling, a psychologist openly shared her own painful story, and later, in private, offered me advice that clearly came from her own unresolved hurt. It was a sobering moment: I had placed my trust in someone to help me navigate a deeply personal challenge, only to realize I was receiving filtered guidance through someone else’s lens.
I don’t pretend to have the answers. In fact, I think the recognition that I don’t know is what helps me remain open-minded and grounded. I try to see things from many perspectives and hold my own views lightly, knowing they can change.
One of my concerns about the current state of psychology is the shift from understanding why a condition exists to simply treating it. This can elevate the psychologist into the role of “healer” or even “savior”—an unrealistic and sometimes dangerous expectation. In truth, healing has to come from within the individual. For some, that healing might not be possible, but symptom management and compassionate guidance can still be incredibly valuable.
When it comes to conditions like schizophrenia or personality disorders, the diagnostic insights of psychology are vital. But for complex trauma—like C-PTSD, which I live with—I’ve found that traditional therapeutic methods, particularly those focused on repeatedly revisiting the trauma, are often more harmful than helpful. Journaling, memoir writing, and even engaging with communities online can exacerbate symptoms rather than relieve them.
In my own experience, it wasn’t the clinical psychologist who helped me most, but a mental health support worker. She listened when I needed to be heard, but always gently redirected my focus toward the future. She encouraged me to dream again, to take baby steps toward a goal, and in doing so, gave me a sense of hope. After those sessions, I left feeling lighter—not heavier.
Perhaps this is what’s missing in many clinical settings: a human element, grounded in empathy, encouragement, and hope. And I understand this kind of emotional labor can be draining, especially for those trained to approach care from a more analytical or diagnostic angle.
I do wonder whether psychologists are always aware of the limits of their role. Sometimes, the best support might not come from therapy, but from community, family, purpose—or, for some, faith. Yet the system tends to offer recurring appointments and a “client” label, regardless of what the person truly needs.
I say all this with deep respect for the complexity of the field and for the honesty in your interview. The topics you explored—psychology, philosophy, and religion—are emotionally charged, and you navigated them with intelligence and curiosity even if I did not agree entirely with your guest. I hope my reflections come across in the same spirit.
Thank you for this thoughtful and earnest comment Paul, I appreciate it more than you know. I am glad to hear that you found someone who gave you hope and helped you towards a brighter future. It sounds like she applied methods I use in CBT rather than anything related to trauma, which fits with the issues I have with the how this new diagnosis is handled. The development of which is exactly the result our problem with psychology and the inflated importance of psychiatrists and psychologists. If the field was handled with more humility and understanding of their limitations, we wouldn’t be seeing the expansion of the diagnostic system or the mistreatment of people within. The help you got sounds exactly like that which people get from pastoral care workers, to whom I have frequently referred people. I think if clergy and religion worked properly, fewer people would suffer and more would be saved. My disagreement with Dr Orr is that clergy aren’t giving people what they need because they are pandering to the woke ideology, losing their essence and attraction in the process, and leaving more people at the mercy of psychology. And we see now that it’s no good replacement for religion.
Faith is something we have to be brought up in, it needs practice, doesn’t show up by itself, it’s not something we are born with, that we either have or we don’t. It’s incredibly difficult to produce later in life, which is why it occurs in people who have experienced something incredible and miraculous, like near-death, cancer, psychedelics etc.
You say: “But this critique can just as easily be applied to religion”
To which I would say; the difference is that religion isn’t pretending to be a science the way psychology claims to be. It’s open about the fact that you have to have faith that theres a divinity. Precisely BECAUSE you will not be provided proof until the afterlife.
Thanks Hannah, and please keep doing what you are doing, especially exposing the deeply troubling feminist attitudes that are permeating society. As someone who has been exposed to the damage it causes, it is nice to see people not afraid to ask the right questions.
Hannah, I’ll make you two promises.
1- I’ll state that I’m a fan of your work and love that you got a chance to talk to Orr. Great guy.
2- I won’t write a dissertation in here about it.
Good morning. I had to listen to the second half of this program twice to make sure I understood the proposal you seem to agree on, which is that religion is the solution to the problems of the "secular" world, meaning, the world. I feel like someone who just had some soot dumped on my carpet and the solution is the Electrolux sold by the guy who dumped the ashes. How the problem is defined will lead to a better understanding of the solution.
Your discussion omits the problems caused, by which I mean in psyche and in society, by religious notions like sin. Instead, we hear "confess your sins." This could have been a sermon from 1825 rather than 2025...which proposes a kind of orthodoxy that has itself not been evaluated for its risk factors, and applicability to an individual; and does not take into account the radical changes of the environment that humans have lived through since the first telegraph signal moved an idea at the speed of light in the 1840s.
So not one idea here about how we are sitting in an electrified world, facing hundreds of cameras a day, overwhelmed by "information" and "data" and being turned INTO information and data...not a single notion of thought itself being outsourced and synthesized...humanity is reeling from this...we have not stabilized ourselves from the previous wave upon wave of technological advance when we are now having synthetic thought thrust upon us as the "new god" which affects every person on Earth whatever may be their beliefs.
I think from a theological standpoint the most disturbing thing about this discussion is the omission of the human creature as an inherently creative entity, capable of healing, capable of its own quest for meaning. Instead, we get "join a conservative religious movement and learn how to obey." I heard that correctly, yes? Obey whom?
I am wondering...how did I listen to a long sermon by a Christian cleric that did not once allude to the Inner Teacher...the Holy Spirit...the inner connection to what some call god?
But rather, to do exactly what all forms of electrical technology from telegraph to artificial intelligence do, which is take awareness out of its inner locus, and turn humans into tribal beings, unraveling the inner quest...
I believe I heard references to the claimed dichotomy between the sinful and immoral and incorrect "secular" state of being versus the moral, good, structured religious state of being. Have we considered whether this is a valid categorization of experience? And this will take us back to the flourishing times of the 1950s?
You cannot be serious presenting this thought unquestioned...the 1950s, dominated by television, the Cold War, the development of the hydrogen bomb, the Red Scare, the Pink Scare and the synthesis or proliferation of every chemical or chemical category that we are drowning in today -- the hormone disruptors that are driving both the cancer epidemic and what you dismiss as "transitioning." Funny you could agree to that and blame it on some form of, um, misguided thinking or leftist politics and not examine or even consider for a moment the nature of the environment where it's happening?
I heard no discussion of the contrast between belief and faith; between false knowledge and understanding; no discussion of the source of thought and consciousness.
The message of this religious sermon was "come to the church!" and not "your life is a journey to the awareness and the creativity of god, who/which is within you, which is the only place it can be."
We find ourselves as individuals and as a species where we are today — utterly overwhelmed with the ground of being and of consciousness collapsing beneath us, wearing the skin suit of not of religion but of personhood when in truth our personhood is being outsourced to zeros and ones...
And Hannah, did you really say you want to breach the sanctity of the consulting room with CAMERAS and MICROPHONES to enforce therapists recommending that people seek out religion as the solution to their problems?
Seriously? Or were you just kidding? Who are you people?
This comment is beneath you Eric and I ask you don’t write anything regarding the 7th here.
As for your other comment, I will say this: it’s all well and good to claim everyone has their own personal God when it doesn’t matter and life is going your way. When my people were in camps, when my people were hostages, it was the traditions and the rituals that kept them going. When the going gets tough, you need faith that there’s the God above- that’s why it’s commandment 1 and 2. And it’s when we lose that as a society that the going gets tough.
I went to Buchenwald and spent two days there, and a week in Erfurt, going through the ruins. In Buchenwald, there were intellectuals of every stripe and religion; communists and professors and photographers, not captured for their religious views. In Paris, gay people of every religion disappeared from the Marais.
Every other house in Paris has a Holocaust plaque on it and not all have the Star of David. At Auschwitz, there is a touching (devastating) memorial to the Sinti and Romany people, who were basically exterminated successfully (there were a few survivors). It is because I am educated in the Holocaust and continued my education through travel and interviews that I know what Never Again means.
Never Again means...Never Again. And that is right now.
Your guest is a Christian cleric. In Christian theology, the Holy Spirit is the part of God that people connect with directly. That was the message of Jesus. This is not about "a personal religion" or made up version of God. It's what Jesus said to his disciples at the last supper.
As pertains to astrology, Jesus references it directly. To investigate astrology is not to "believe anything" but rather to follow the direct teachings of Jesus, who to the Christians is God. From the Gospel of Luke:
The Return of the Son of Man
24 They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations. And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. 25 There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among the nations, bewildered by the roaring of the sea and the surging of the waves. 26 Men will faint from fear and anxiety over what is coming upon the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.…
PS — Dr Orr, you mentioned that the Jewish community pulled together after 10/7 — but not one whisper or plea for mercy and compassion for the unfolding genocide in the former holy land? What kind of Christian are you?
Who would Jesus bomb?