Last week, it emerged that the left is trying to tar Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) as mentally unhinged because he supports Israel in its existential war for survival against the genocidal forces of Hamas and Iran. The tactic of claiming that mainstream political views with which you disagree constitute mental illness is a classic Stalin-esque tactic. In Soviet Russia, dissidents were diagnosed as clinically insane and stuck in “asylums” that were actually prisons, where they were subject to a variety of tortures in the name of regaining their “mental health.”

It turns out that this approach is not limited to a class of political insiders and journalists trying to silence one of Israel’s most principled and stalwart defenders in Washington, D.C. Instead, the entire psychotherapy profession has determined that supporting Zionism—that is, supporting the idea that Jews have a right to a nation in a land that they’ve occupied without interruption for almost 4,000 years—is a sign of psychopathic mental illness.

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Writing at The Jewish Chronicle, Miri Bar-Halpern and Dean McCay wrote a piece the title and subtitle of which speak volumes: “Introducing ‘decolonisation therapy’, the pseudoscience that seeks to erase your Zionism: This outrageous new form of ‘therapy’ harms Jewish mental health and fuels antisemitism.”

The practice is called decolonising (or decolonial) therapy, and it aims to address the psychological impact of colonialism, systemic oppression and historical trauma. It emphasises reclaiming cultural identity, dismantling internalised oppression and healing from colonial violence.

While this framework uses a social-justice framework, it labels Zionism – a key component of the Jewish identity – as a root cause of mental illness, despite its conspicuous absence in the DSM.

[snip]

Psychological therapy can have, broadly speaking, two goals: a reduction of behaviour or emotion or an increase in a skill or behaviour. Decolonial therapists aim to increase activism in their clients, and one aspect of this activism involves seeking retribution against innocent targets, sometimes resulting in guilty emotional reactions in a client.

Not only is this approach to therapy not evidence-based, but it is causing harm to clients. This approach forces Jewish clients into an impossible position: Either reject their historical and cultural connection to Israel or risk being cast as oppressors in the therapeutic setting.

For Jewish clients experiencing trauma related to antisemitism, forced displacement or intergenerational Holocaust trauma, such an approach is retraumatising rather than healing.

What they’re describing isn’t psychotherapy. This is political activism and indoctrination being used against vulnerable people. It is precisely the same as the old Soviet Union using psychiatric diagnoses as an excuse to institutionalize and brainwash (often Jewish) dissidents, and it’s what we’re saying played out on a national scale against Sen. Fetterman.

Nor is this a fringe activity. It’s a broad-based movement within the psychotherapist community:

For example, at a professional meeting in November 2024, a presenter delivered a talk on decolonial approaches for a serious psychological disorder to an audience of some 900 mental-health practitioners.

In that talk, the presenter included slides for “the colonised mind” that equated Zionism with genocidal tendencies, misogynoir (hatred toward black women), rape culture, genocidal tendencies and fascism.

When confronted with the extensive and offensive inaccuracies in the presentation, this speaker recorded a response in which she portrayed herself as the victim.

[snip]

Unfortunately, antisemitism has become a central theme in the mental-health community, and it may get worse before it gets better.

The problem reaches all the way to the top of the profession. Bar-Halpern and McKay inform us that the former president of the American Psychological Association (“APA”) demanded that this approach to Zionism—i.e., it’s the sign of someone who has a psychopathic mental illness—become codified in its new ethics code, a proposal that is hidden behind a portal available only to members of the APA.

In fact, that the APA would move in this direction was predictable. In 2021, it issued a formal apology to “people of color” for its complicity in “promoting, perpetuating, and failing to challenge racism, racial discrimination, and human hierarchy in the U.S.”

The apology is explicitly extended to “American Arab, Middle Eastern/North African (AMENA) individuals” and expresses remorse for its “Eurocentric research standards.” It also flagellates the profession for having been “rooted in oppressive psychological science to protect Whiteness, White people, and White epistemologies...” In other words, the APA has been “colonized” by cultural Marxism to an extreme degree.

Given that attitude, it was only a matter of time before the Marxists in charge turned their attention to antisemitism.

One of the sayings I’m seeing among Democrat Jews is “enough is enough.” I’m sure they all voted for Biden, but maybe, just maybe, some are finally figuring out that it’s their ideology, not the MAGA movement, that is their enemy.

And just a friendly note to Jews seeking therapy: Before you head for the couch, you’d better find out in advance if your therapist is “Zionism friendly.” Otherwise, you could find yourself labeled a psychopath and headed for the insane asylum to be deprogrammed.