218. Why Your Teen Thinks in Extremes — And What You Can Do About It

In this episode, I talk with Noelle Mering, fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of No Contact, about how "going no contact" shifted from a last-resort response to abuse into a normalized, even celebrated, way to handle political and ideological disagreement.

Dr. Kristopher Kaliebe returns to the podcast (his first visit was episode 158) to talk about the capture of psychiatry, and child and adolescent psychiatry in particular, by gender ideology. He is a child, general, and forensic psychiatrist at the University of South Florida, a former AACAP committee co-chair, one of the authors of the HHS review of pediatric gender medicine, and co-author of the first letter in the American Journal of Psychiatry to even mention the systematic reviews showing low-quality evidence for these interventions. We start where so many of my parent coaching clients start: why is it nearly impossible to find a psychiatrist who won’t simply affirm a teenager’s declared gender identity? Dr. Kaliebe describes the spiral of silence, how taking over a single committee let activists speak for entire medical organizations, and why the same journals that discuss placebo effects for every other treatment refuse to mention them for gender medicine. We dig into the heuristics and biases driving clinicians (myside bias, availability bias, language manipulation), and I add a few from my own list: rationalizing versus being rational, the rescuer complex, and reaction formation. We close on what good care would actually look like: treating somatic distress, recognizing OCD-style intrusive thoughts, and helping parents plan for the extinction burst that comes when they stop rewarding suicide threats.

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Pastor and counselor Chris Legg returns to talk about something he sees in nearly every grad student who arrives for training at Aletheia Family Counseling Center: fear. After 25 years of training new therapists from seminaries, secular universities, and everything in between, Chris says most show up convinced a lawsuit is coming the moment anyone learns what they personally believe. We start with the phrase "check your values at the door," and Chris shows why it collapses under its own logic. He tells the story of a local university that stopped sending students to Aletheia after an intern wrote that she was glad she wasn't required to counsel same-sex couples, and what happened when he asked the professors whether a survivor of assault should be required to treat abusers. We also look at what the record actually shows about therapists getting in trouble for declining certain clients, why the process is so often the punishment, and why some talented clinicians are giving up their licenses to work as coaches. I explain why I kept my license but do my work as a coach. Then Chris speaks directly to grad students and interns: you matter to the therapeutic process, and you don't have to practice in constant fear. What does it look like to expose your faith without imposing it? And where can counselors with conservative or religious values find mentorship? Pastor Chris Legg, LPCs, and his wife Ginger have been living out the parable of God’s love for His people since 1993 and have been blessed with five great kids. He is the Lead Pastor at South Spring Baptist Church in Tyler, TX (www.southspring.org) and is also the founding owner and clinical director of Alethia Family Counseling Center (www.alethiacounseling.com), which offers training, counseling, speaking and business consulting in several locations in Texas. He and his son, Mark, are the authors of the book Sex and Marriage, which is intended to restore to marriages the power God intended. Learn more about SSBC at www.southspring.org. More about Alethia at www.alethiacounseling.com. Contact Chris, read any of his articles, and look for other resources at his website at www.chrismlegg.com and at https://chrismlegg.substack.com/ [00:00:00] Start [00:03:35] Why Grad Students Fear Their Own Values [00:08:08] University Cuts Ties Over Same-Sex Couples Policy [00:11:34] Competency, Referrals, and Therapist Boundaries [00:20:43] Do Therapists Really Lose Licenses Over Refusals [00:24:55] Board Complaints: The Process Is the Punishment [00:30:44] Aletheia's Bylaws: Therapy as Protected Speech [00:32:44] Why Therapists Trade Licenses for Coaching [00:42:12] Chris's Message to Anxious New Therapists [00:55:07] Imposing vs. Exposing Values in Therapy [00:59:53] How Conversion Therapy's Meaning Shifted [01:02:17] Advice for Therapists in Blue States [01:10:27] Cross-State Licensing Laws and PSYPACT ROGD REPAIR Course + Community gives concerned parents instant access to over 120 lessons providing the psychological insights and communication tools you need to get through to your kid. Now featuring 24/7 personalized AI support implementing the tools with RepairBot! Use code SOMETHERAPIST2026 to take 50% off your first month.

Katy Faust returns to the podcast, and this time the conversation goes somewhere I didn’t expect. Katy founded Them Before Us to defend children’s right to their mother and father, and she opens by laying out the three principles that drive her work: children have a right to life, children need their mom and dad, and children should not be bought and sold. Those convictions put her at odds with almost everyone at some point, which is exactly why I wanted to talk with her again. What makes this episode different is how personal it gets. Katy asks me, as a therapist, whether children ever really get over losing a parent. That question opens into a long exchange about ego strength, earned secure attachment, and why a twenty-year-old can’t yet see what a forty-year-old can about the childhood in their rear view mirror. I share more about my own psychic foundations than I have before on this show, picking up on the personal disclosures in my recent conversation with Soad Tabrizi. We also get practical. Katy shares what it took to help the son they adopted at age two to finally feel secure after neglect and abandonment. Katy explains the “no flinch rule” from her book on parenting, why self-esteem comes from doing hard things rather than hearing praise, and why American parenting has the freedom-to-constraint ratio backwards. And we talk directly to parents who built their families through donor conception or surrogacy: how do you hold the complexity of loving your children while staying open to what they may be grieving as a result of your choices? Katy Faust is Founder and President of Them Before Us, a global movement defending children’s right to their mother and father. She publishes, speaks and testifies widely on why marriage and family are matters of justice for children. Her articles have appeared in outlets including Newsweek, USA Today, Fox News, The Federalist, Public Discourse, WORLD Magazine, First Things, and the Blaze. She is on the advisory board for the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. She detailed her philosophy of worldview transmission in her book, Raising Conservative Kids in a Woke City. Her third book, Pro-Child Politics was published September 2024. She is spearheading Greater Than which aims to retake legal marriage on behalf of children. She and her husband have raised their four children in Seattle. Katy previously appeared on this podcast in episode 145. Putting Children’s Needs Before Adults’ Desires with Katy Faust. Substack: Them Before Us | Katy Faust Facebook: Them Before Us Instagram: @them_before_us Podcast: Them Before Us Podcast X: @ThemBeforeUs Website: Them Before Us X | @Katy_Faust Facebook |Katy Faust Website |Katy Faust Instagram |@katyfaustofficial Books mentioned in this episode: Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children’s Rights Movement — Katy Faust Raising Conservative Kids in a Woke City — Katy Faust, co-authored (the co-author is referred to only as “Stacy” in the transcript) Pro-Child Politics — Katy Faust, ed. (a collection of 19 subject-matter experts writing on policy through a child-first lens) [00:00:00] Start [00:01:59] Right To Life, Mother And Father, Not Bought And Sold [00:13:07] Adults Should Do Hard Things For Children [00:19:25] Children Who Lost A Parent By Adult Choice [00:22:32] Ego Strength And Honest Reflection [00:31:00] Earned Secure Attachment [00:32:56] Adopting A Son Starved Of Everything [00:36:16] Parenting From Guilt And Weak Boundaries [00:40:10] American Parenting Has It Upside Down [00:47:12] Where Self-Esteem Actually Comes From [00:51:09] Emotional Intimacy And The No Flinch Rule [01:00:04] Advice For Parents Who Used Donors Or Surrogacy