You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

Swell AI Transcript: 155. Arnold Cantu.mp3
Arnold Cantu:
They were concerned that other departments wouldn't be able to decenter whiteness as effectively. All seemed all for it. It was really bizarre. So I'm already kind of skeptical of just the ideas being thrown around. And I'm hearing that and I'm like, is this literally this echo chamber that's forming in front of my face of let's keep students in-house because we can decenter whiteness or whatever. And I'm like, holy shit, this is indoctrination. You must be some kind of therapist.

Stephanie Winn: Today my guest is Arnold Cantu. He is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist with experience in school, social work, private practice, currently working in community mental health, seeing children, adolescents, families, and adults. He's originally born in Mexico, considers Texas his home, and lives in Colorado. Arnold originally got in touch with me due to a paper that he's been working on publishing, which should be coming out right around the time of this episode or so, in the journal, excuse me, in a special issue of the Journal of Teaching and Social Work. And this paper is about his experiences in a doctoral program and why he's no longer a student there. So we're going to talk about the capture of social work and whatever else we end up getting into. Arnold, welcome. Thanks for joining me.

Arnold Cantu: Thanks for having me, Stephanie.

Stephanie Winn: So we were just chatting before we start recording, and I explained that my brain is basically mush today, going through a lot of stressful family issues, and that even though I've read your paper, I've largely forgotten it. And so we're just going to enter this interview sort of from that beginning perspective. And I'm just going to invite you to tell people what inspired this paper and sort of the series of events that led you here.

Arnold Cantu: Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. And I'm just looking over here just to, I have my paper pulled up, it's a bit lengthy, so I just want to kind of refer back to specifics that, in case this jogged my memory, I wrote it about a year ago or so. But essentially, yes, I was a doctoral program at Colorado State University for starting in 2021. And I had been in the field already for a number of years at that point, you know, maybe seven or so years in those different settings I've been at. Notably, I think what led up to me wanting to join the doctoral program or enroll was some of my research interests were more so of pushing back on what's typically called the biomedical model of mental health. I'm fairly critical of the use of psychiatric diagnoses, the language and rhetoric around mental disorder, mental illness. I think it's like a pretty controversial model that not a whole lot of people are really privy to. And so I was in the field for a while, lived in Texas and in Albuquerque after that, Albuquerque, New Mexico. And so anyway, at that point, I decided, well, instead of kind of feeling pretty fed up about just kind of being, bathing in the medical model, working as a therapist, I figured, well, I can continue bitching about this, or I can go back to grad school and try to do something about it, try to like contribute to the scholarly literature and whatnot. And so anyway, long story short, I applied for this doctoral program in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, and then started in 2021 until, so about three years until 2024. And well, so what ended up happening, the reason I wrote this piece and, you know, the gist of this piece is similar to how a lot of us have been observing kind of just how academia has changed as a whole as far as what's typically taught and usually conveyed as like absolute truths when it comes to the social sciences, social problems, things like that. I kind of knew what I was getting into, you know, entering the doctoral program You know, this is 2020 when I had applied, so I kind of saw a little bit of the rumblings of like, you know, the way identity politics, politics, so to speak, as far as that was being talked about and whatnot. So I kind of braced myself for the doctoral program. And it was fine for a while. But anyway, so long story short, I withdrew in last year in the summer of 2024 after, to me, the entire 2023 was like a pretty collectively low point in my life. And so the paper that I wrote, although it's kind of like, you can call it like an expose of my experience in the doctoral program, I anonymized, but I copy and pasted. emails I receive from professors and faculty in the social work department at CSU. But to kind of just make an argument as well, instead of just copying and pasting emails and just complaining about my experience, I try to make an argument in my article about how It's built off of this pretty well-known essay slash blog post by Jonathan Haidt, who I'm sure you're probably pretty aware of. Years ago, he wrote this piece about the telos of universities, like the function of a university. And he argued, you know, is it truth or social justice? And so, my paper itself, I make this argument kind of paradoxically where I say, you know, at least in my experience, I don't think it's an either or. I think both can be possible, truth and social justice being the tellos of, at least in my experience, the social work program. But then I make the arguments a bit more nuanced where I say in my article that Both can be the telos of a program, but it's a very specific flavor of truth and social justice that can coexist, which in the long scheme of things is not gonna be sustainable. And so that's kind of the overall argument I try to make in the article, but I can speak to anything else about it.

Stephanie Winn: When you say the truth and social justice can coexist as the telos of a doctoral program in social work, but only a particular flavor, what is that flavor at the intersection of those two that can actually work? And what can't fit?

Arnold Cantu: Yeah, I mean, at least based on my experience, to use the more pejorative kind of term that I don't even think I really like a whole lot is that, at least to me, I think both were able to exist in the flavor of what's typically considered, you know, woke, wokeism and things like that. Others call it, you know, critical social justice and whatnot, where there's always this binary of like, you know, oppressor, oppressed and whatnot. And so, at least again in my experience, that was what I found to be the telos of the university or at least my program. But I think where there was a clash and maybe I can just jump into kind of like my experience in this in this doctoral program where there was a clash was I was fairly just skeptical of what was being taught in my program. I I think as should be the case in any kind of university setting, we want to be able to kind of digest things slowly and make arguments for it and question things or push back, debate ideas and whatnot. And so what I found myself is that I found myself just really not buying the usual ideas and rhetoric that can fall under the idea of wokeism, that can fall under the idea of critical social justice. And so for me, that's where, because I didn't outwardly endorse certain ideas, that led to one of the lowest years of my life of 2023 where I had my beliefs and values questioned by a social work professor on faculty. And that's what I write about in the article as well. And so you want me to just kind of jump into maybe the timeline and all that?

Stephanie Winn: Tell us where you disagreed or where the clash started to emerge.

Arnold Cantu: Yeah, maybe it just helps if I kind of go through like the chronology of my experience. So and anybody interested, obviously can read the article themselves when it comes out, because they tend to be pretty detailed and what happened in the sequence of events. But so again, at least for me, you know, just point blank, I would argue that my research interests at the time and still my interests now, I think could very easily fall under this like anti-oppressive view of things. To me, you know, I think In short, the medical model of mental health is a pretty oppressive model that stigmatizes, that brings people down, that's pretty scientifically flawed, et cetera. And so I had that as, I think, a pretty compelling view that I did subscribe to just like this anti-oppressive view in my research interests. But anyway, so basically the timeline or the sequence of events that happened was fall of 2022. You know, I was wrapping up the semester, heading into winter break, and I reached out to a social work professor that had taught a course that I was a part of before, and so reached out to this professor to ask to see if this professor could be, to write me a recommendation for a fellowship I was applying for. I feel like the American Psychological Association, you're a grad student, you want to be able to bring in some extra money because you don't really make much at all. And so I had this fellowship I wanted to apply for. And, you know, part of this fellowship or like the application packet was just a personal statement. And this fellowship itself was geared towards, you know, being able to help expand access and resources to underserved populations and whatnot. And it was geared towards minority students, which I guess I had to consider myself that to be able to apply. And so I reached out to this professor to ask for a letter of recommendation. professor responded saying, you know, send me your CV and what you have for a personal statement. And, you know, maybe I'll, or I'd be happy to write something for you. So wrote up this essay for the application packet. And this is the interesting part that I think from there on, specifically from there on outward, I just, to me was just more of this, not only the, this, this compelling of, of needing to believe things in a particular way, but also this blatant hypocrisy that I'll speak to as well. So I wrote up my personal statement in this personal statement or this essay for this fellowship. I wrote about how, you know, I could see my research interests that I've explained a little bit about already being able to serve the Hispanic population, the immigrant population, the bulk of my work experience has been working with those folks in those communities anyway. And so I wrote the essay geared towards addressing the medical model of mental health and tailoring it to like how I could be able to support this particular population that are especially vulnerable with immigrant status and worry and fear about seeking services, language barriers, et cetera. Essentially using my real life personal experiences to write it up. send it off to this professor, professor responds saying something to the effect that, you know, people can read the article to see exactly what this professor said, but it wasn't a good enough essay. And so I try to edit it a little bit and send it back to the professor. And then professor says, you know, let's just talk about it after the new year. I'm like, okay, that's kind of weird. So this was winter 2022 going to 2023. I have this like weird exchange with this professor. And so obviously already my winter feels a little off. I mean, I'm supposed to be on break, but it's like, I have this kind of looming, like, what the hell are we going to, you know, talk about after the new year? Anyway, so. new year rolls around and this professor wants to meet and we have coffee soon after the new year and that's where essentially this professor drills me for at least a good couple hours of you know, questioning my beliefs, my values, if I'm taking them seriously of the social work profession, et cetera, et cetera. And so I'm kind of just like stumbling a bit of like, where the hell is this coming from? Like, what do I just, I'm asking you for a personal, or a letter of recommendation, where is this coming from? This is where I think it kind of just blew up for me that I thought was, incredibly disenchanting and just really demoralizing where, again, this was very start of 2023. This professor during this sit down with me for a couple of hours where I'm drilled about my beliefs and values tells me, oh, in the fall of 2022, in one of the social work classes I had taken, I had taken two at that semester, But in one of them, one of the assignments was about developing an anti-oppressive research proposal. So this professor is bringing back this example. Not a class this professor taught. And I'm being pretty selective about not naming people. I just don't know what the hell would happen if I did. But this professor brings up an example of a separate social work class. We had this assignment of developing an anti-oppressive research proposal. I was like, good, sweet, at least in the fall of 2022, easy assignment. I could do this. My research interests align. But what I did, just for this assignment and this presentation of fall of 2022, is I ended up defining anti-oppressive using the Oxford English Dictionary. That's how I conceptualize it. I didn't really address the research literature. It was a pretty short presentation. It wasn't a paper, it was just a proposal. So all I did was, for the sake of my assignment, was define it using the Oxford English Dictionary. That got word to this professor, and this professor was basically saying to me, that wasn't good enough, what you did in this class of yours, not even a class that this professor was teaching, this was a different professor, but brought that up as like, you know, ding number one, you're not taking it seriously if you're calling, because in my presentation itself, I told my peers and my professor, you know, to not succumb to the buzzword nature of anti-oppressive, I'm gonna conceptualizing it using the dictionary and stuff. I felt pretty pleased with myself and I got a good grade on it, but that word got to this other professor and then that was one of the things that was brought up as a concern. There was other stuff, but you're making a face. I don't know if you have some questions there.

Stephanie Winn: Well, I'm sure I'm not alone. I think my listeners are probably right there with me as you're listening to this story, like wondering where this is going. And I know we're gonna find out, but your values sound very liberal going into this, right? You're using terminology like anti-oppressive. You're talking about serving marginalized communities. You're hitting all those, as you said, buzzwords. And then you used the dictionary to define a term. So I'm very curious to see, you know, obviously this, you know, person coming from a pretty leftist value system, it sounds like, I mean, I guess where we're going is that you just were not far left enough. for the institution. So yeah, I'm just, I'm curious where this is going. I mean, how were you, how were you supposed to define the term anti-oppressive, if not the dictionary?

Arnold Cantu: Well, I mean, the easy pushback, and I addressed this in my article, is that the really easy and somewhat valid pushback is to actually refer to the body of scholarly literature of anti-oppressive research. And it's as with like just research in general and literature, it's like there's multiple pockets of like interesting ideas and stuff. But just for the sake of my assignment, I was like, I don't know if I really want to do that. The stuff we had read so far, it didn't really jive with me anyway. It goes back to like the whole binary thing and power and oppressor, oppressed, et cetera. So also because not only did it not jive with me at that point, but I was still digesting it. I didn't reference that literature. Again, this assignment was pretty small. It wasn't this huge deal. It was like a 20 minute presentation and a PowerPoint. So it's not like I was writing a 30 page paper where I probably would have cited some of that literature. It was a pretty small assignment, and so I was like, screw it, I'll just use it with, I'll just define it using the dictionary itself. Because it still made sense to me, at least the dictionary definition of it still made sense to me for my proposal, my assignment.

Stephanie Winn: Do you recall what the dictionary definition was?

Arnold Cantu: I'd have to find my assignment. I mean, but essentially, the way I kind of conceptualize it is engaging a research to be able to kind of lift the spirits of people, let them feel freer, liberate them, etc, things like that. But just like a pretty brief definition of it, I guess.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, I guess that definition doesn't jive with me. Because When you say engaging in research with the intention of lifting the spirits of the people, that sounds like apples and oranges to me. Research is about gathering information. It's not therapy or a dance party. Research is not a form of emotional self-care. I don't know, I'm a little lost there. what what happens and and how does that affect objectivity because you know part of this the scientific method has has to include openness to learning things that you were not looking for like right there's you know there's the hypothesis and the null hypothesis and And there's already a problem, you know, even take out the social justice component of things, there's already a problem where research studies that had significant findings where they found some kind of positive correlation or something like that get published a lot more than studies where they found no correlation or they didn't find the thing they were looking for. And so that already skews the data we have available. And then if you add in this sort of like Research should make people feel good well okay now we're really losing objectivity you know you have an agenda already at that point when you're starting from that place.

Arnold Cantu: I forget who I heard it described it in this way, but I've heard it described at least this kind of way social science, or at least this aspect of social sciences nowadays, it's described as like, you already have a conclusion, you're just kind of working backwards from it, instead of the way it should be in reverse. But again, that's just kind of, that was already your starting point for this class. And so I was already kind of pigeonholed into, I had to, for the purpose of this assignment, make sense of it in that way.

Stephanie Winn: Okay, so you were working within that framework. But according to a professor from a different class, you didn't do a good enough job in your 20 minute PowerPoint of using the existing body of literature on anti-oppressive practices in which research makes people feel uplifted. I'm sorry, I'm getting loopy already just trying to follow along, but please tell us what happened next.

Arnold Cantu: This is all again, this is all coming out in this in this meeting with with this professor two or two or so hours. So that was like in the way I read it in my article, it's like that was count number one of three of things that were brought up as a concern about me having concerns about me. I called it I called the existing body of literature or just the use of anti-oppressive a buzzword. The second thing was in a separate social work class that also occurred in the fall of 2022, different professor, not the one I'm speaking to during this coffee sit down, different professor, we had a different assignment or another assignment in which we had to create like a fake mock syllabus of a class that we would love to teach someday. So I was like, sweet, easy, this would be fun. I created a mock syllabus on you know, alternative critical perspectives of mental health, critiquing the biomedical model, and et cetera, et cetera. What I did not do, though, in this syllabus, this practice syllabus, is for all of our syllabi across the social work, the school of social work, They all have not only are they all like 20, 30 pages now, because there's so much like fluff on them and stuff that's not necessary. But there was also I'm not saying this part's unnecessary. There was also what the school decided to use or to commit to using this like. a pronoun statement, and the statement is essentially just speaking to the idea of we're going to be respectful about using people's preferred pronouns, etc. It's a blurb in all syllabi across the School of Social Work. I have no issue with that. I didn't include that in this practice syllabus. Was that required? No, it was not required. And I still have my syllabus for that class that I can show people. It was not required. But okay, so I do wanna, because I think people will waffle here a little bit. In the assignment itself, there was one of the pieces that maybe closely resembled, including that was, You know, in the syllabus, you need to be able to list classroom expectations, ground rules, or community guidelines that name the important elements for how you will hold classroom space. Pretty generic, pretty vague. And so I said, I told myself, I'm not going to include this because I'm going to probably, I'm going to include a different blurb about, you know, expecting students to kind of engage with material and debate and agree to disagree, things like that. I also hadn't included purposefully, you know, what you've seen as land acknowledgements across different universities and organizations and stuff. Anyway, I did not include this pronoun statement. I still have no issue with it. I just chose, I wanted my syllabus to just focus purely on content. That got word to this professor that I was sitting down with, or that asked me to sit with to have coffee to talk about my fellowship application. So that was count number two, that I hadn't included it. And then, you know, in the article itself, some of the emails I copy and paste, this professor kind of references to indirectly of, you know, it's important for students to kind of hold the space to be inclusive and things like, so I think that was kind of a jab at my having not included that in this assignment.

Stephanie Winn: So just to be clear, the assignment was to create the syllabus and have some kind of statement in there about classroom expectations and how you are going to run things and what students should, you know, how they should conduct themselves. And you did that. It just wasn't in the form of a statement about pronouns or land acknowledgement. And so you got dinged for that.

Arnold Cantu: A tiny, tiny point, but, but that got word to this professor who asked me to sit down after the new year. And that was count number two, that then led to having, you know, beliefs and values question and having concern expressed for me. So yeah, that was count number two. And then count number three was just bringing back again, that personal statement I had written for the fellowship. And just about how, you know, to your point, and this was a comment that was brought up during this conversation, you know, I didn't attend enough in this essay to name the buzzwords to the structural issues, et cetera, et cetera. I don't want to misspeak, but in my article, it's all there verbatim of what the concerns were. And in the appendix or in one of the appendices, I include my personal statements so people can compare what this professor was asking for, for this fellowship application essay and what I wrote. And people can see for themselves if Mine sucked if it was good enough, et cetera. But that was count number three that I hadn't sufficiently attended to yada yada yada about all the buzzwords that are all over academia right now.

Stephanie Winn: And all of this is happening in a context in which you are a Mexican-American social worker who primarily wants to help other immigrants. So it's like your whole, I mean, talk about the telos, like the whole telos of you being in this program is to help a group that according to the buzzwords of the institution is considered an oppressed or marginalized category of people as it is. That's why you're there. But that is not good enough for them.

Arnold Cantu: And earlier you had said, it's maybe that my things I was writing about were not. left enough. And so in this back and forth with this professor, I try to hold my ground. I was intimidated as fuck. Like I don't expect to have to have a sit down and have like my beliefs and values question my surprise. Not really, but it was still really uncomfortable. And I try to hold my ground. I push back. I would say like, you know, because this professor was like something to the effect of, I worry you're not, you're not being genuine enough, you know, with these ideas and all that. And I was like, no, Professor, if I was regurgitating these ideas, and endorsing them so strongly, that would be disingenuous of me. So the fact that I'm pushing back or not, not even pushing back, but just not outwardly endorsing them, it's because I'm being genuinely, I'm trying to be genuine and thoughtful and me trying to make sense of like, is this work for me? Is it, what's the validity to these ideas? Do they make sense? Where are the arguments for them? Where are the arguments? So I was being, I was doing what a student should be doing at a university, which is like, just kind of digest these ideas in a way that makes sense to me. But apparently I was not genuine enough with even, but anyway, so I kept pushing back a little bit here and there as well and try to stay on my ground. And then I made this comment, back to your point about not being far left enough. I made this comment to this professor because truthfully, this was 2023, three years out after the pandemic started. little personal anecdote that I'm sure they wouldn't mind. During the pandemic, you know, we had pretty significant family strife. Me and my siblings were had near complete falling out as probably a lot of families did during the pandemic. And so I'm bringing this up to this professor of like, essentially saying, at least for me, especially in this program, I need to kind of walk the middle of the road when it comes to what we're being taught, these different ideas. I'm not necessarily endorsing, I'm not necessarily rejecting them, but like I have to be middle of the road. And I referred to my personal family history where I had to do that. So I don't lose my siblings. And I got kind of emotional talking to this professor. And so I told this professor, I was like, you know, I used to be kind of, you know, left leaning for sure. But you know, now I have to be middle of the road. And wouldn't you know, what is professor say? Oh, yeah, I'm pretty far left. Yeah, no fucking shit you are. But just outwardly says that. And anyway, it's, it's, it's probably a good obvious statement. But It's one thing to be far left. I guess I have some issue with people who are just on either extreme. But to say that and obviously be trying to compel students to then believe what you believe is really disgusting. behavior of any professor, any kind of teacher.

Stephanie Winn: Well, and I want to stop and focus on what you just said for a moment because I think it's so important. It was love and concern for your family members, in part, that led you to realize a need to be more politically open-minded, a little bit more flexible. You know, regardless of where you're eventually going to stand on any given issue or how you're going to vote, you realized for the sake of your family that you could not just take some righteous hardline stance and be unwilling to hear other perspectives. And so maybe that shifted you a little bit more towards the center. And I think that's admirable. And I would relate and compare that to my experience as a therapist. I think it was my experience as a therapist, which I, you know, I worked 10 years full-time as a therapist before a year ago making the decision to only do consulting and educating for the time being. I still have my license, but You know, it was during those 10 years as a therapist, I feel like I grew up in so many ways. You know, granted, I was technically an adult the whole time, but it really matured me to work with people from all walks of life and find that common human element, be able to see from their perspective. And I remember, in fact, the first time that I was placed working with a population that was more conservative than I was used to and more kind of representative of like working class, small town, middle America, which was the one population that I not only didn't have so-called cultural competency with, but didn't recognize a need for cultural competency with. But it matured me. It opened my mind. And what really shocks me is that there are therapists who have the opposite reaction, where they don't feel that responsibility towards the patient or the patient's family to understand that patient's point of view and and to potentially facilitate greater harmony in family relationships except in extreme cases of abuse or severe personality psychopathology. I think most reasonable people would agree that unless you have a loved one who's really at the extremes of those types of behaviors that you should try to work with them even if it's hard. So, I think your experience as a sibling and my experience as a therapist are comparable in some ways because we responded to what life gave us and we were willing to grow. And it's just so shocking and disturbing to me to know that some of the leaders in the fields of counseling and social work, some of the people teaching the next generation, supervising the next generation, have that sort of backwards narrow-minded approach where somehow the work doesn't do that to them, somehow it radicalizes them even further. And that just raises all kinds of ethical issues for me about who they're willing to treat, who they're willing to not treat, what kind of bias they're taking out on their patients, and whether they're colluding with the patients who share their political beliefs and perhaps not seeing the bigger picture.

Arnold Cantu: I think some of my observations and being a part of some therapists, Facebook groups and whatnot, it really is just kind of a shit show now as far as this, so being so tender to not being willing to sit with somebody just that you see differently or that you don't see eye to eye on on certain issues. And, you know, if it comes to friends and whatnot, maybe I guess you can make an argument of like, if someone's a total asshole, then maybe I'll keep my distance. But when it comes to like the profession, like therapy was supposed to be about like anything goes as far as like the stuff discussed and people's most immense kind of pain and suffering and the most, you know, warped thinking that they want help with like that's that's sort of that's what it's supposed and that's what I still try to kind of replicate in my work with clients where I'll see the most far left person I'll see the most far right person and I have fun with both ends of the extremes because it's still struggles that they're dealing with and that they want support with. I still try to strongly hold firm to that. But yeah, I think at least in the university setting, at least based on my experience, which this is still probably half of when this was still January 2023. And I experienced a bunch of crap through at least the summer. It's so disappointing to see that in the university setting that. And so what I will say also, I try to make this pretty explicit in my article where I think the most concerning part of my experience is that, as far as I know, it wasn't that I was this jerk in class who was pushing back. I'm typically a pretty quiet student. I'm just laid back and really just only speak, and I don't like to hear myself talk, so I'll just speak up when I think it's necessary. So I wasn't this jerk who was pushing back on everything or just being an ass or whatever. And yet, not being that kind of person still got me somehow called out. So it was like this lack of endorsement, which I think is so sinister. This lack of endorsement, lack of outwardly regurgitating what I was being taught. In some ways, I guess what I'm trying to say is even someone who's quiet, no one is really safe, so to speak. You can be a jerk pushing back, you can be a quiet person, and at least in my experience, that's still a cause for concern, which is so, so sinister and demoralizing.

Stephanie Winn: It really seems like these programs are doing everything in their power to gatekeep the profession and select for only the most politically radical people.

Arnold Cantu: To that point, I write about this also in my article. When was it? I don't know, 2022, 2021. This is before everything happened. I sat in on this faculty meeting, staff and faculty meeting. in which they were just discussing curriculum. I wanted to be a part of it because I wanted to be able to hopefully influence curriculum for the clinical courses at the master's level to maybe invoke some of my, or introduce some of my ideas and some of my interests of critical perspectives in mental health. So I sat in on those meetings for a good reason to see kind of how things are done and to hopefully be able to influence what is, how curriculum gets revised There was this really interesting point where I was sitting amongst faculty and instructors and they were going on about, my memory's a bit fuzzy, but I know the stuff of what was being said, but they were going off about core classes and where students should take them. And I forget what class it was, but they were starting to talk about, you know, that they're not too sure if students take certain core classes in other departments outside of social work. They were concerned that other departments wouldn't be able to, and this is another buzzword or buzzphrase, they wouldn't be able to decenter whiteness as effectively. So they pushed so they and they were all they all seemed all for it. Stephanie like it was really bizarre. So I'm observing. I'm already kind of skeptical of just the ideas being thrown around and I'm hearing that and I'm like, is this is this literally? Is this literally this echo chamber that's forming in front of my face of, let's keep students in-house, because we can de-center whiteness or whatever, better than other, and I'm like, holy shit, this is, and this is a loaded word, but like, this is indoctrination. You're keeping students in-house to teach a very specific idea, one of many, that are not ultimate, absolute truths, and are extremely controversial. But anyway, I was blown away by that.

Stephanie Winn: At what point do we call something that insular and paranoid and mistrustful of outside perspectives a cult?

Arnold Cantu: Yeah. I don't know if I would label things like that. I think that the word, the more harsh word I am more comfortable with is others writing about how, you know, it's kind of like a sort of religion or fundamentalism and things like that.

Stephanie Winn: Well, and let's, let's not forget that this ends up being psychologically abusive to people as well. I mean, so if you're a student in a program that has as one of its central aims, the idea of decentering whiteness, and you happen to be white, what does that mean in terms of how you get treated in the classroom? Are you not allowed to have a voice? Are you not allowed to ask questions or engage as a student because you are a white person and you should sit down and shut up and let people of a different skin color speak? Because that gets into psychological abuse pretty quickly, in my opinion, and personal experience.

Arnold Cantu: Another point I try to get across in my article is that towards the end of it, I try to just make a case for not rejecting, like schools shouldn't reject what's being taught, but we should have a fair debate about them and just kind of what are their strengths, what are their merits, what are their significant weaknesses for whatever philosophies or ideas we want to discuss, concepts. But what I try to make a case for in my article is, Even though 2023 for me was a pretty low point, it was one of the lowest points in my life. I think I was able to handle it decently because I kind of knew what was going on. Like I, I think being middle of the road helped me not only get out of an echo chamber, but helped me have this vantage point to see like, oh, this is kind of what's happening. And these are the moving pieces and whatnot. And so even though it was a low point in my life, it was, I think I was able to handle it decently, not great, but decently. But then what I write about in my article is like, I was able to handle it decently. I can't imagine what freshmen young kids, like right out of high school, 17, 18 years old, what they're probably thinking. And I don't know if CSU did this. I know other universities did for sure. And I don't know if they're doing this now, but I think CSU, if I remember correctly, they were considering having this like, as part of your required courses as freshmen is like a class on power, justice, et cetera. So that was going I think that what there was a rumblings about that about making it a mandated course. So kind of forcing students to. And I imagine the way those courses were gonna be taught were slanted in a particular way. I highly doubt they were gonna be balanced in any way. So I feel bad. I was thinking like, I feel bad for freshmen. I feel bad for, we have a pretty significant international population of students who are walking into this and like, what is all this that's going on? And yeah, and then I may, I use the word in my article of, I feel bad for students who either are really uncomfortable, but they wanna go to college and graduate and get a degree, are terrified of pushing back, feel like shit because of what's being discussed, or to use the big word that's overly used now, but I think in this case was appropriate, they kind of gaslight themselves. So it's like, I guess I have to believe this because my professors are telling me this and everybody's all on board. We're like rabid and hungry for this. And so it's something that maybe was a significant conflict with my beliefs and values before entering university. Now I'm believing it like full lock, stock and barrel, like you kind of gashed at yourself, man. That's really disappointing if that's happening for some students.

Stephanie Winn: Another element that comes across as I listen to your story and I have the same experience with similar stories is like, I mean, it feels oppressive, actually. I think that's, you know, like I wasn't even going for that buzzword, as you would say, but it feels like so heavy. I mean, it kind of reminds me of certain environments I've been in, some of them having to do with politics and some of them not at all, where you just walk into a room and everyone's like icy on eggshells, really up, like it's just this oppressive, Atmosphere. It feels heavy. And something I noticed early on in your story actually that I want to point out now is that like there's no sense of humor, right? When you say, when you use a term like buzzword, now I can use the term buzzword to describe things from quote unquote my own side, right? I can talk about buzzwords in a lighthearted manner that are buzzwords I use and my friends use because I have a sense of humor about myself. Right? And when I'm working with parents of trans-identified youth, which involves, I don't know what your views on that are, but I view it as a social contagion and I call it the trifecta of social contagion because I also include cluster B personality traits and woke beliefs about social justice all working together. And when this enters a family system, I describe humor and spontaneity, playfulness, whimsy. These are like keystone species that are the first to disappear when the toxin enters the ecosystem, like frogs. The moment you pollute the water, first thing to die off is the frogs. Similarly, when you have an unhealthy dynamic in a family, these are the first things to go. So if a family is in a healthy enough place, I can help them restore that. But it's kind of the last thing to come back, right? And so that's, to me, just a red flag in and of itself, that while you are coming from this place of being someone more laid back, moderate, someone I presume has a sense of humor about yourself when it's appropriate to do so, you, I would imagine, are the sort of person who has friendships that are close enough where you can tease each other. Those are all indicators of relational health and not having a personality disorder where you take everything so freaking seriously. And so that's just so striking about this. It's this oppressive, humorless environment that's like, no, you are not taking this seriously enough. And it's like, since when did taking everything so freaking seriously become the goal or an indicator of like health?

Arnold Cantu: Right. Well, and again, like, yes, yes to the, I mean, it's kind of, it's a blatant hypocrisy that this anti-oppressive worldview philosophy ends up becoming oppressive in and of itself, for sure. But but to the point, it's like, you know, it's you're not taking this seriously. You're not taking certain ideas or certain flake to go back to my article, like certain flavors of social justice, certain flavors of the anti-oppressive, anti-racist is the other one. You're not taking certain flavors of them seriously enough. But again, it's it's. It's the social sciences, it's dealing with humans, it's dealing with fuzzy, intractable problems with thoughts and feelings. It's the most complex thing ever, but certain flavors apparently seem to be truths. And if you don't follow them, then you're seen as a problem.

Stephanie Winn: And my question is like, okay, so what are those flavors doing to solve problems?

Arnold Cantu: Well, I'm sure they're probably just creating more problems in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, I don't think they're really making a dent of anything. But so, taking things seriously and the oppressive nature, can I mention one more, at least another thing about, so, and this was kind of like, this was where, After this, like, head-rattling meeting with this professor before the spring semester started in 2023, I was, like, demoralized. I had, like, you know, one non-social work professor and friend who I would confide in about, like, man, am I missing something? What's going on? Et cetera. And they call it an ally, to use another term. And so I had some support. Small, but some support. that meeting happens, I email professor to get things in writing of like clarity. And that the email back and forth is what I ended up including the article anonymized, but people can go read a verbatim of what this professor responded. Because I responded to I reached out to this professor after the meeting saying like, just want to make sure I'm understanding what the concerns are about me. And professor responded in a pretty lengthy email listing all the things that were of concern and how students and standards they should be upheld to and all that. So people go read it themselves. And so I'm having that email exchange, getting ready for the spring semester. It's my last, it's my last social work required social work class for this doctoral program. I'm rattled, I'm like pretty pissed, I'm kind of like this is bullshit, whatever, my last social work class should be a pretty interesting one, it's practical and whatnot. And this professor, another one, shares a survey with us, with me and my peers of, You know, it's a thoughtful survey. It's just, you know, what are your learning styles? Is there anything particular I need to know about you to tailor your experience in my class? Very thoughtful. I'm already kind of like on edge and rattled and on alert given my experience with this other professor like a week or two or three before. And so what do I do is there's this survey that I'm being offered to complete. I go to the CSU website. I search CSU student academic freedom. I find a page from one of the colleges where they talk about students' academic freedom. It reads wonderfully. It's like, oh yeah, this is what it should be about. I copy and paste that link into the survey and I just say something to the effect of, you know, I hope this is respected and honored in your class. I copy and paste the link. I didn't think anything was going to come of it, but then like a week or so after, that professor emails me, CCs the professor from that coffee sit down who drilled me for two hours and essentially says things to the effect that email is copied and pasted in the article so people can read it. But essentially says, I see you, you know, you value academic freedom. Me and this other professor were talking about, you know, your, ideas about social justice. I can see it, I can, academic freedom, I can see it going many ways was something to that effect in the email. Why don't the three of us sit down and talk about what you mean? All I did was copy and paste a link about academic freedom, but that's something that needs to be discussed with professor who drilled me for two hours, like what the hell is, anyway. Yeah, you're making a face too, so I want to let you.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, I mean, it feels really over the top. It feels like you're being bullied at this point. Many of you listening to this show are concerned about an adolescent or young adult you care about who's caught up in the gender insanity and therefore at risk of medical self-destruction. I developed ROGD Repair as a resource for parents just like you. It's a self-paced online course and community that will teach you the psychology concept and communication tools the families I've consulted with have found most helpful in understanding and getting through to their children, even when they're adults. Visit ROGDRepair.com to learn more about the program and use promo code SomeTherapist2025 at checkout to take 50% off your first month. That's ROGDRepair.com. All right, so you found something to read us. Tell us what you're about to read us and then go for it.

Arnold Cantu: Yeah, so this is building off of that point where I dropped the link in the survey about just respecting academic freedom. Because at this juncture, this is where essentially for me, it triggered me reaching out to the graduate school to get support from deans, assistant deans, so they can intervene, which it did pretty quickly. And I can speak to that real quick also. So at the demoralizing hours or two hour long conversation with, call this professor, professor A, and then start that class. where I'm like, sweet, I can drop a link about academic freedom. A week or so later, I get this response from Professor B, who says, hi, Arnold. I hope the beginning of the semester is treating you well. I am writing to check in about the survey that you filled out for the beginning of class. Thanks for doing that. In it, you mentioned that supporting academic freedom is important for you to feel welcome in class. I was thinking it was important to have a conversation about what this means to you, because I can see it going many different ways.

null: I don't know what the hell that means.

Arnold Cantu: Professor A and I checked in about the start of the class and mentioned that the two of you have had an ongoing conversation about social justice and academic freedom. So I am CCing Professor A here, so we're all on the same page. Can we set up a time to check in sometime soon? See you tomorrow. So I got that email, didn't respond immediately. I reached out to graduate school. ask for support, like, this is what's been happening. This is the email, like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be ganged up on with nobody else to back me up with these two professors with, to me, I don't know, maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know any other way to read that email except academic freedom for you is a no-go, essentially.

Stephanie Winn: The way I hear it is that clearly you have already been identified as a problem.

Arnold Cantu: Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, basically.

Stephanie Winn: And it makes me want to ask you to play devil's advocate and identify the most, like, obnoxious thing, like, because, you know, anyone listening to you, what to speak of seeing you on video, like you have a very calming voice and face, a laid back demeanor, like the initial impression you give is not a particularly like inflammatory or deranged person. And you've already talked about like being rather quiet, being middle of the road. So, you know, I think anyone who's trying to understand, I guess anyone who's trying to give the benefit of the doubt that these people are not just completely fricking Looney Tunes is like, you know, what is Arnold not telling us? Did he like, make a big stink over something like what is you know, like, Yeah, I mean, yeah, people can think that people can be wondering about that.

Arnold Cantu: I don't know what else I did besides those three counts that I was pretty explicit and candid about. And I You know, people can ask my peers how they thought of me and other professors and other classes, but, or people can, you know, go ask these professors directly about what was that about. It's a public university. I'm sure there's probably ways to kind of inquire about this. Maybe, I don't know, but this is a state public university.

Stephanie Winn: And in terms of the pushback that you provided though, there were things like you saying, So they said, I just don't think you're genuine enough in your engagement with social justice. And you counterpoint, I am being genuine. That's why I'm not just regurgitating exactly what you say, right? I mean, that sounds like kind of the extent of your disagreeableness, if you will.

Arnold Cantu: Yeah, yeah, like, I'm invoking what I thought that, you know, the purpose of university was, which is like you to discuss and debate ideas, like I mentioned in my article, like, we're not teaching the laws of physics, where there's like truths and stuff, we're talking about complex social issues, we can discuss and debate them, we don't have to be all in for them or not, like, come on, it's, it's,

Stephanie Winn: Can I ask about the female to male ratio at the school? Well, I guess there's probably people who are trans and identify as non-binary and stuff like that, too. But overall, when it comes to students and faculty, what was the proportion of males and females in the environment?

Arnold Cantu: I mean, social work itself is a predominantly male female field. So most faculty were most faculty, including instructors, were presumably female. Masters level cohorts were mostly female as well. So, yeah, I mean, that's just the professor who drilled you as a guy. I don't know if I want to say.

Stephanie Winn: Oh, you don't want to because you don't want to provide any identifying information.

Arnold Cantu: I don't know what can by a mini oscillator.

Stephanie Winn: Okay, got it. Well, that's fair. I respect that. It's just, you know, I think. This is getting into what some people call toxic femininity, right? The insistence on conformity to certain social rules lest we make the mistake, the unforgivable sin of hurting someone's feelings.

Arnold Cantu: Yeah, I just- I'd heard of that idea before. That's interesting.

Stephanie Winn: Well, it kind of feels, I mean, you know, you're, you are outnumbered in terms of the gender ratio. And I just wonder if that played a role, if they felt threatened by you as a male student and, and part of what I hear about your, you know, let's discuss and debate ideas. I think, um, You know, it's well documented that men have an easier time than women experiencing camaraderie through conflict, you know, overt competition in terms of, you know, sporting competitions and things like that. But also, males tend to strengthen their bonds through conflict, and as long as it's done according to certain rules that they all implicitly or explicitly agree on, whereas females tend to be overall more conflict-averse, more concerned with Again, the dark side of it is enforcing conformity out of fear. It's sort of the devouring mother figure, right? Like not letting people have their autonomy because we must ensure this I guess, pseudo-quasi-harmony. And here you are sounding kind of like a, you know, and I, as a woman, share your perspective. And I think there are lots of women who agree with those ideals. I'm just saying that I think when it comes to gender distribution of personality traits and social styles, that saying, well, can't we just have a good old friendly debate, you know, that comes more easily on average. to men and so I wonder about in female-dominated professions like social work how easy it is to lose sight of the value of a good old-fashioned friendly civil debate.

Arnold Cantu: I think that's a pretty charitable characterization probably because I imagine like why not ask folks in philosophy I don't think it's irrespective of gender. I'm sure the norm is we're going to debate the hell out of ideas and make arguments and defend our views and positions and stuff. So I get what you're saying. That's probably a very charitable interpretation of what could be playing as well. but I get what you mean though. I think, you know, one of my, I'll call him a friend who worked there at the, you know, works there at the university as well. This is another kind of pretty, now it's almost kind of comical, but he had told me, you know, I think you're just kind of the wrong, you're the wrong kind of student there. And I'm like, well, why? Well, here's probably why. Not only, sure, this is going to be a little boasting, but I'm pretty damn proud of it. Not only was I not, again, regurgitating outwardly and endorsing all these different ideas and views, but in 2023, in the midst of all this, I not only had a second article published in an academic journal as the sole author, like I had one my first year, or my second year, and second article as a sole author in a journal that same year, 2023, I was also wrapping up, this is 2023 or 2024, I was wrapping up being lead editor of two volumes of my interest of critiquing the medical model of mental health. And so people could say, like, I was pretty productive, but I was pretty productive, but not endorsing all these views and whatnot. And so I imagine, in some respects, like, you know, you were the wrong kind of student, because not only were you kind of accomplished as a grad student, but Now, is that kind of making sense? Like, I don't know, I just, and so the thing that was pretty also disheartening was, after all this went down, you know, I personally wanted to be cordial with all professors, all faculty. I was like, you know, I mean, obviously we're gonna disagree on things, but I still need to, I'm gonna get along with you on whatnot. And so, whenever I had, I can't remember if it was when I had the article published or I had those two books published. I'd have to look at my piece here, but I, because there's this, there was this kind of culture of celebrating students and accomplishments and publications. So I let professors know and I let this particular professor know Um, professor a in my article, I let professor a no, Hey, I got, you know, my article published. I froze the books either work. Um, that was probably the article. No, it was the books. Anyway, told this professor, I got my articles published. So I just want you to know, and this professor responds with congrats. That's it. And I was super proud of my two books I had published as well. I was pretty relentless getting them done during the winter break when I was supposed to be with family during Christmas. They understood, but I was cranking them out, editing, revising chapters, all that kind of stuff. Two books, there were probably close to 1,000 pages total of both books. I was thinking like, whoa, my school needs, should, they're probably going to be really excited for me. Like this is a kind of a, this is pretty neat, it's a big deal. And so I let faculty know, I let professors know, hey, I got this project I'm wrapping up, et cetera, et cetera. There was no celebration about it, no outward, although, no, to be fair, I think on their Facebook page, mentioned that I had gotten these books published but like months after the fact. I think when I was already with when I already withdrew from the university. But it wasn't until a friend of mine who's not a social work professor advocated for me to have a story written up about me having these two books published, then there was some kind of like recognition about it. But if he hadn't advocated for me, he's not even a social work professor, if he hadn't advocated for me, it would probably just been radio silence of me having two edited volumes published in one year and another article as the sole author. And all I got from that one professor was, congrats!

Stephanie Winn: It seems like you really stood out amongst students because it's not common, as you're saying, for someone who's in a program like this to be so prolific, especially independently of the program. You know, it's not like you were working on a dissertation for the program. It was that you were doing all these sort of things out there on your own, contributing to your field. And I'm also hearing that you worked in the field for many years before this program. What proportion of your classmates were experienced social workers like you compared to, you know, straight out of an undergrad program?

Arnold Cantu: Or master's program. There was a cohort of seven of us, and I would say Most of us, with the exception of one, had a real-life work experience post-master's program. I think there was only one student who went- Seven, that's pretty small. It was a doctoral program, so they tend to be small cohorts. I think there was only one student who went straight through undergrad, master's, doctoral student. Clinical work, out of the seven, I think it was mostly three of us who were still practicing pretty regularly as therapists. Three out of the seven.

Stephanie Winn: So I'm noticing we've talked about, or we haven't talked about, you've skirted around the fact that you have written and put a lot of thought into critiquing the medical model of mental health. You have a perspective on the DSM. I'm wondering if we might want to schedule like a second conversation for those things, because I'm tempted to ask you about that. But I also just want to finish the story and then give my brain a break and come back to that when I'm more refreshed. So Why don't we do that sometime? We'll have a follow-up conversation where you can express your views on those matters. But let's just kind of finish the story. So you had these three strikes against you. You were being made out to be this real kind of problem student. And it feels like you can't go anywhere in the program without Professor B kind of being there to remind you that they're looking over your shoulder and scrutinizing your every move. So what eventually happened?

Arnold Cantu: Yeah. a bit more, a bit more happen. You know, I, at that point, and I'll kind of just do the cliff notes and then bring us up to current time. So after all that happened, after that email of academic freedom, graduate school got involved, they intervened within like 24, 48 hours. I'm assuming they basically told them to just kind of leave me alone. And so noticeably for sure from then onward, especially with Professor A, it was just kind of really, you know, very bland interactions. Like it wasn't really, there's no happiness or positivity between us, which it was before. So that was weird for the whole 2023. When I at that at that time around summertime, it was at the point where I had to start to develop my committee for the dissertation. It's already a small faculty as it is, but and I may be wrong about this. They can correct me if I'm wrong, but This is all after everything happened. I reached out to a few faculty and it was pretty interesting where like one after the other, they were like, you know, I'm too busy, I have too much on my plate, I can't be on it. The ones that could were either Professor A, who I was telling the grad school, I'm not gonna have Professor L on my committee, absolutely not. And others that just didn't have the relevant interests or knowledge of my research interests. But anyway, I told my advisor that and my advisor was like, that's really uncommon that we all just agree, we're all in this together, we help out all doc students, so it's really interesting that a few of them at least that would have been good committee members said no. So advisor kind of characterized that as like, that's really rare that that was happening. So other peers were like, oh, it's because they canceled you, that's what's going on.

Stephanie Winn: And about your advisor, you hadn't mentioned your advisor until now, what was your relationship with that person like throughout this whole process?

Arnold Cantu: It was, it was, it was so-so. My advisor, as it happened, was on sabbatical most of this entire time. So not really privy to what was going on. But even then, there, there, unfortunately, there wasn't much of a relationship with advisor either. I guess I'll say advisor essentially seemed to take the side of professors, of how the professors acted. So I thought that was pretty disheartening. So that happened where I had scrambled to fill out my committee to ask a professor I knew from a different state to be on it. He agreed to it. I had to scramble with that. I think fall semester was fine. Spring 2024 rolls around. Again, this entire time it's just kind of like, I'm already kind of checked out. I'm barely connected to the school. Spring 2024 rolls around. I am wrapping up coursework completely to get started for the preliminary exam, which is like a 40 page paper. And around the same time of the semester wrapping up, spring 2024, I started a new job back in the community mental health scene, seeing a client a day, back to back to back. It's in the belly of the beast of the medical model, but I love the setting. I love the client, so I'm noticeably a lot more content. Also, because I'm wrapping up the coursework and my partner, we've been together for a while and she's been with me. We've been together for a while and she has been with me since I started grad school and kind of seen me throughout the three years in it. And she just makes this offhanded comment. She knew what was going on, obviously, but she makes this offhanded comment of like, man, you've been a lot happier with your new job. And I'm like, I think I have been, because I was already wrapping up the semester. So I think I have been a lot happier. So before I even started the preliminary exam or before like the deadline or the clock started to begin it, I had to do some thinking of like, damn, do I even have this job now? I really like it. I don't even know if I really want to go through with this anymore. I don't know if it's going to, the payoff is going to be well. I wasn't able to get support with funding for tuition. So I was like, I don't know if I really want to take out more student loans. I don't have relationships with anybody in the school. Me and my advisor were not really close at all. And so at that point, it was a hard, at least a little bit initially, a hard choice, but then knowing that I have this job where I'm really, and I'm still working in this clinic, that's when I was like, you know what? I think I'm just gonna step away from that. It's not worth it. And the minute I decided that, It was just like this weight lifted off my shoulder of, I don't have to deal with this anymore. I don't have to interact with these people anymore. I can just go do my thing and just read a lot of books now that I want to and do some more writing that's more enjoyable. And so that was April, May, June of 2024 where I decided to withdraw and no regrets since then.

Stephanie Winn: I wonder what you would have gained from staying in the program. I mean, you would have been able to call yourself doctor.

Arnold Cantu: Yeah.

Stephanie Winn: And is there anything else?

Arnold Cantu: Debt, for sure, I would have gained that. More debt. But I mean, I think, you know, to be fair, I think pretty good competency with developing and conducting research, which, you know, would be neat to have. But at that point, I also was like, I don't know if I even want to, if this is how university settings are right now, I don't know if I ever want to go teach in a university setting because I'm already going to be kind of an outcast. So, because most people get PhDs, I think, for the most part, because they want to be professors. And at that point, I was like, I don't know if I want to teach because look what I went through. And I was just a student. I can't, I couldn't deal with that as a professor with all the politics. So.

Stephanie Winn: So master's degree in social work it is.

Arnold Cantu: Yeah, I'm content with that. It's paid off pretty well.

Stephanie Winn: You're an LCSW, you have done private practice. I think right now you're not in private practice, right?

Arnold Cantu: No, community mental health, like the clinic setting.

Stephanie Winn: And you certainly didn't need to be in that doctoral program in order to write and publish on your own. So you've done that. Really just, It seems like in some ways a waste of time and money to a certain degree and a learning opportunity and a test of your spiritual strength. Because it really seemed like people were like wearing away at you to try to conform. And you weren't even, you weren't especially defiant. You just kind of stood your ground.

Arnold Cantu: Right. Yeah, and I will say I could think of it that way as far as like this is a waste of time and money. What I will say, I definitely got out of it that I'm really appreciative in the grand scheme of things is I think I developed to be a pretty, I will say at least a decent writer and just kind of learned the tricks of the trade to write more academically. trying to make more compelling arguments and stuff. And so that helped me, I have a third edited volume that got published in December of 2024. So I got that post grad school, post withdrawing from the doctoral program. So I sharpened my writing skills. And so I'm really appreciative about that, at least.

Stephanie Winn: Well, there you go. Have you found communities since leaving that school, like intellectual, collegial community?

Arnold Cantu: Somewhat. I mean, some friends, and then, you know, maybe a couple colleagues as well. But the thing, you know, I, nowadays, I, aside from, you know, online resources, subsex, things like that. That's the interesting part about the work we do is at least community mental health setting to where it's high volume clients. And I think this is where I try to point out, you know, a bit of the hypocrisy is that when you're kind of in the trenches, when I'm, so to speak in the trenches, None of this shit really matters. The clients don't really care. They'll talk about politics, but again, I'm pretty comfortable being middle of the road with them and meeting them where they're at, but I don't find this desire necessarily doing this full-time work to even need that community, because I enjoy my work so much as it is that it's not really lacking, the community aspect at least.

Stephanie Winn: Now that you've gained some distance from this, do you have any other kind of perspectives on it?

Arnold Cantu: The only thing is I'll be curious to see if the pendulum swings a bit too much in the other way. I'm still pretty, you know, I would call myself politically homeless, but I think all this backlash is because of the stuff that I went through, at least, you know, the flavor of it all is what people were fed up with, of these flavors of truth and social justice. So that's nice. I also worry about, you know, The pendulum will swing too far the other way, but time will tell.

Stephanie Winn: I can't really imagine what that would look like in the field of counseling and social work. Can you?

Arnold Cantu: Well, I meant more in the academic setting. In the counseling and social work, I don't even know if the pendulum will swing at all in the field of counseling and social work. That's a top-down approach, I think, and it all depends on you know, the powers that be and their views on things and how that trickles down. So who knows if, if our field will kind of settle down a little bit.

Stephanie Winn: So now you've, you've written a couple of books and you've published, or you will be publishing around the time of this episode release more or less, um, uh, this article about your experience, which will of course have linked in the show notes. Um, what's next for your writing career? Cause it sounds like that's something that's really important to you and that you've been working on.

Arnold Cantu: I think, you know, I'm still very much in the world of alternative or critical perspectives to the medical model. So I think here and there, I have a few ideas. I'm kind of still chewing on a bit. So if there's anything to write in particular, it'll probably be something in that field of just submitting something for another journal of just, you know, critiquing the medical model. I do have one, actually you might be interested in this one. I do have one under review right now in which I make a case where, and this might piss some people off, but I think I make a pretty compelling, rigorous case for it where, in my view, If we have this idea of the medical model, which comes with all the labels, you know, psychiatric diagnosis, diagnostic labels, neurodiversity is that other word that's rumbling about quite a bit. What I make the argument in my article is that in my view, people can disagree with me, I have observed that Okay, feel free to back up. And the medical model, if we operate under the assumption that it's not progressive, it's more oppressive, this medical model, pathologizing, medicalizing human suffering, et cetera. If we operate with that assumption, my paper I have under review, I write that, the so-called progressive left and factions within it have paradoxically bought into an oppressive model despite supposedly being, you know, social justice oriented. They've kind of been swindled. And I write in my article about how the way I see that is just how, you know, it's so common nowadays to see how people very strongly identify with psychiatric labels and the name of activism and the whole neurodiversity movement. I don't critique that movement, whether it's right or wrong, but I just pointed out that that's happening. But it's kind of, I kind of make the argument that the so-called progressive left has been swindled and have bought into a model that if they knew the history of it and the intellectual foundations of it, they'd want to reject it like me, but they're kind of been hoodwinked in a way. That one hopefully will be accepted, I think. And I can share that with you too.

Stephanie Winn: Well, that one feels very much in fitting with just what I was feeling when we were talking about this, when I said that it feels oppressive. It's just more like, what is the feeling of oppression? And I described that like you walk into a room and it's really icy and you're like, oh, I better not say certain things like that. That's the feeling, right? Or at least part of it. And I think that people get so lost in these kind of heady abstract intellectual concepts of narratives of privilege and oppression and all that kind of stuff. But like when you come into your body in the present moment and like what your instincts are telling you, like that's where we'll discover the oppression that's right there, you know, cloaked in these, you know, progressive ideals. So yeah, I'd definitely be curious to read that. And, and, of course, as of this recording, we haven't like scheduled anything yet, but I'm just gonna go ahead and tell listeners to be on the lookout at some point in the future for another conversation with Arnold Cantu. about his critique of the medical model and perspective on the DSM and why these things might actually be more oppressive than some people realize. So I think that's probably a good place to wrap things up. Where can people find you? Do you have like a social media presence, blog or anything?

Arnold Cantu: No, I was thinking of like, how would I answer that if I am asked? I have Facebook, but it's mostly to just follow like funny pages and memes and stuff. If people want to read any of my writings, I have like the there's that ResearchGate website. I can share that and people can request articles and chapters I've written. So that's pretty much it. There's not much of a presence for me after that.

Stephanie Winn: It must spare you a lot of grief to not be on social media platforms, really. I have Facebook, but it's basically a graveyard. It's like homage to my early 20s, basically. I'm like, oh, hello, person I went to a dance party once with at 24. It's nostalgic. Maybe not even that. All right. Well, Arnold, it's been a pleasure speaking with you. Thanks for joining me.

Arnold Cantu: Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Stephanie Winn: Thank you for listening to You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist. If you enjoyed this episode, kindly take a moment to rate, review, share, or comment on it using your platform of choice. And of course, please remember, podcasts are not therapy, and I'm not your therapist. Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for this awesome theme song, Half Awake, and to Pods by Nick for production. For help navigating the impact of the gender craze on your family, be sure to check out my program for parents, ROGD Repair. Any resource you heard mentioned on this show, plus how to get in touch with me, can all be found in the notes and links below. Rain or shine, I hope you will step outside to breathe the air today. In the words of Max Ehrman, with all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.