NYT gift link: Is Cutting Off Your Family Good Therapy?

Parent Cafe
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Out of curiosity, I took the test myself, and I certainly don’t think it’s a perfect test. The questions too often lump different kinds of abuse together; a better test would be more specific. That said, I didn’t feel the test says there is toxicity when there isn’t. I got a 56, which puts me in the middle of the scale. The recommended action for that score is to consider talking to a therapist, not going no-contact. That sounds pretty reasonable, not reactionary.

Without going into details, I would never want my kids to go through the things my parents put me and my siblings through (or failed to protect us from.)

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I took it too. Scored in the high 70s and it still recommended therapy and not cutting ties.

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I have several thoughts about this, one of which is that this man is grossly unethical as a therapist and is gleefully exploiting and monetizing the ever widening field of “mental health.” His “Mr. Teahan’s Healing Community” with its $69.99 monthly fee does not sound healing at all, but rather like a self reinforcing narrative with a cult of personality at its center. (There is also a hint of “recovered memories” that is lurking around the edges here, which calls back to 1990s, and the Satanic Panic)

Whew.

My S23 and I have had a few conversations over the last year around what he views among his peers as a pathologizing of what are normal feelings and mental health, such as anxiety. In his view (and I share this), it’s normal to feel anxiety from time to time: e.g. before an exam, working on a difficult assignment, going on a date, starting a new job or school, etc.

It’s normal to feel anxious in situations like that.

What he sees happening however, is rather than noticing: oh, I’m anxious about the upcoming test/date/new school, etc. his peers despair about how the situation or moment is “toxic,” and that they have “unhealthy” anxiety, and that their “mental health” is affected.

There is a belief that their mental health is only “healthy” if their emotions are positive. Being sad, or anxious, or upset about a situation isn’t viewed as something that is situational, or appropriate, or something that will pass or change.

Now, all of that said, I agree that for some relationships it is (sadly) essential to go low or no contact. And, I agree an “information diet” for difficult individuals is a good technique if the relationship is hurtful.

My above comments, and my concern around labeling so many things as “toxic” notwithstanding, my concern for young people’s mental health is that I worry that many of them are convinced by social algorithms (e.g. they “like” or view a couple reels or tiktoks about anxiety/“toxic traits” etc, and now this content is a constant stream into their feeds) is that they come to believe that they have terribly fragile mental health, that they suffer from several disorders, and that they do not understand that their algorithms are pushing them constant content from “wellness” and “mental health” influencers that are making money off of all of this.

When one’s social media feeds are full of this kind of content, it is natural to view “anxiety;” toxic;" “mental health;” “wellness;” “no contact;”…etc. as a norm. Once this is your feed, this is your mental norm; it is impossible to not have it affect your world view and your thoughts.

This man, Mr. Teahan, and the bandwagon of other grifting “mental health” influencers on TikTok and “socials” is incredibly harmful. It is a grift. The viewers of their reels, 'toks, videos, podcasts, etc. are the marks, and every view, click, listen, share, like…it’s all a financial boon to the “influencer,” the “content creator.” And there is so much false, inaccurate, and harmful content in the social media “wellness space” and mental health sphere.

Lest one think that I am coming down too hard on anyone who goes low or no contact with a family member, or that my son and I are callous or outdated in our concerns around his peers and mental health, my S23 has chosen not to see his father in years, and that decision was (and is) essential for his mental health. A psychologist was involved at the time, and he spoke multiple times with both of them, individually and together; the psychologist supported my son’s decision, and maybe one day that will change, or it won’t. My son also has a therapist that he talks to once or twice a month on working through difficult situations, and talking about his emotions. I’m grateful that he can notice and talk about his feelings (and recognize when thoughts may be influencing his feelings), and how to move through emotions that might be sad or difficult or hard. He has a great therapist that works well with him.

The man at the center of this NY Times piece is going to ride his cash cow all the way to the bank, and the field of therapy becomes tarnished when people like that operate in the way that he does. I wish the people that have been roped into his “community” received proper support and appropriate guidance for their individual situations. I find his joyous monetizing of it all to be appalling.

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Not yet. Sign up for my newsletter and on-line therapy to save you.

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I took it and scored only 29. Yet, the title of my category still included the word “toxic.” (“Manageable toxicity,” IIRC.) That is kind of pushing the agenda, isn’t it.

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I’m not a big fan of taking quizzes/tests to determine if someone in your life is toxic. I am, however, a fan of excluding toxic people, blood relation or not, from your life. This was crystallized for me when I realized that a family member who had always treated me like (§ you know §) started talking to my then 2 year old kid in the same way. Amazing how your eyes open when something like that happens. I am very close to a good number of members of both my immediate and extended family, but there are a couple I barely speak to. The only contact maintained is because one has no one else to financially support them and the other is because there is a nephew involved who I do not want to experience isolation for reasons that are not his fault.

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This article made more sense to me.

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I LOVE Nedra Glover Tawwab. I haven’t read either of the linked articles but wanted to plus-one anything Nedra writes.

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I think the person doing the cutting off should be allowed to do so, without reproach or judgment from those on the outside. We know ourselves best and know what our mental health can handle. It’s not up to anyone else to decide it. I cringe every time I hear adages like “family is everything” because many people have been through a variety of traumatic experiences involving their families, which have adversely affected their entire lives.

That said, I don’t subscribe to “family toxicity tests” or the type of “cult-y” therapy described in the article. If one is already in therapy then it makes sense to discuss family issues there but to seek out an online therapist who is clearly monetizing the issue, thinking you need a test score to give yourself permission to cut off family members seems sketchy at best.

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I agree, and that should include other family members who may not know or understand the entire story. In my case, even after I told one brother some of the hateful things our mother had said and done he couldn’t see past his own positive experiences and reproached me for not maintaining contact with her. My older siblings had vastly different childhoods from mine.

I cut off one sibling for committing fraud and embezzling funds with no remorse, just anger and resentment at being caught. I didn’t cut off the other one, but substantially reduced contact by email and phone. Life has been less stressful ever since.

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I think this is exactly what the article (and accompanying comments section) lacks. The parents who got cut off in the article didn’t seem to respect their children’s decisions. Instead, they sought to blame and even punish other people. Those subsequent acts tell me that maybe their kids do have legitimate gripes, and it isn’t all Tik Tok telehealth.

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Nedra Tawwab seems to set the bar much higher (lower?) for cutting off family members.

The article gives as an example asking a family member “that they stop stealing your financial information” or “that they no longer show up at your house while visibly intoxicated” and then if they don’t stop doing those behaviors “it may be another sign that some distance is in order.”

Basically, Nedra Tawwab seems to be writing for an audience who will cut off a family member only as an absolute last resort. In families where there is severe toxicity everywhere, but where you may sometimes need to rely on family for practical things, this strategy might make sense. The family member who is stealing from you or showing up to your house high may actually be one of your more functional family members (compared perhaps to those who have beaten you or molested you etc.) It’s sort of a beggars can’t be choosers situation, I suppose. Making the best of a very bad situation where your resources are limited.

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My niece cut off our family. Her issues with us started when her dad died of an overdose. Somehow, his immediate family was to blame (even though two of my brothers lent him money for two stints in rehab in the months leading up to his death). She maintained an arms length relationship while my parents were alive, but she went no contact as soon as they were both gone. I wrote her to congratulate her when her kids were born, and I told her that we would always be here for her. She didn’t even ask what happened when we let her know that her uncle died. We honestly have no clue why she completely cut us off, but I’m sure she has some reason that is valid in her mind. My D says as far as she’s concerned, her cousin is no longer welcome in her life. She wouldn’t even invite her to her wedding - she feels that if her cousin no longer wants to be part of the family, it’s her loss. It still makes me sad.

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This can also relate to friendships. I’m in a close group of 12 college friends. We’ve gotten together for a girls’ weekend every single year since we graduated in the late 80’s. Never missed a year, not even for COVID (we hunkered down in a rented house). One member of our group had a serious falling out with another member a couple of years ago (they live in the same town and were always very close. What happened with them had nothing to do with our group). The first friend made the difficult decision to leave our group (after 30+ years) because she feels that the other friend is too toxic, and her mental health isn’t up to any interactions with her.

It’s been very difficult for the rest of the group to go on without her but smaller groups of us still get together with her for other weekends. The other friend feels very badly about the rift but damage has been done and she’s not able to come back from it. All of us have been affected by it and it’s taken nearly two years for us to get used to this new normal for our group (and frankly, some of us still carry some resentment toward the friend who is still in the group). It’s a work in progress. We still hope that one day our friend will come back to the group.

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I’ve read one of Tawwab’s books. Biggest takeaways when dealing with family:

  1. Just because someone is family doesn’t mean that you have to accept poor behavior from them that you wouldn’t accept from anyone else in your life. Don’t let “But she’s your sister/aunt/brother/cousin” be an excuse.

  2. It’s OK to admit that your parents weren’t the “right” parents for you. That doesn’t mean that they were “bad” parents – abusive, neglectful, etc. – but sometimes they just aren’t the right fit. More than anything, this resonated with me.

  3. Boundaries are good. And boundaries are for you, not the other person. You can set boundaries and someone can choose not to honor them, but it’s on you to enforce them.

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IMHO the fault is with the quack “therapist” catching vulnerable young people in his sticky net. I totally get that late teens/early 20s is when many people re-examine their parents’ parenting. It may help to have a therapist to explore new feelings that arise, but not a charlatan who tells them what to do.

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Agree 100%.

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I agree. There are times when cutting off a family member is appropriate and the healthiest choice, but this particular practitioner seems very unprofessional. It may just be the slant of the journalist, but the descriptions of Patrick Teahan don’t inspire confidence in me that he has his followers’ best interest in heart. Instead, he seems to want to be provocative, which then makes his overall practice sound like it is driven by his personality not necessarily by the needs of his audience.

Mr. Teahan knows what parents say about him, because they sometimes contact him directly, accusing him of ripping families apart.

“You aren’t for the healing of relationships, just the destruction of them,” one of them wrote. “Have you ever considered that you might cause many innocent people and families tremendous damage?” A distraught mother wrote, “Our daughter won’t talk to me because of ‘therapists’ like you.”

This scolding did not have the intended effect on Mr. Teahan, who turned it into content on Tiktok and Facebook, giggling helplessly as he gasped, “Your mom’s in my DMs.”

I am always inclined to think that this sort of newspaper profile/article has been deliberately slanted to paint a specific picture of the subject so I would not be shocked if the writing was edited to make him sound like a charlatan or cult leader (definitely the vibe I got). But when I read the Ellen Berry’s (the reporter) replies in the comment section, she seemed to quite like him and defend him so I don’t know what to make of it.

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The mother referenced in that TikTok video isn’t a client of his, nor (it implies) is the adult child. Sending hate mail to someone who has no actual contact with either you or your adult child to blame them for the problems in your personal relationship seems…unproductive to say the least. It also call into question how a person is relating with their child if this is their M.O.

Also I am not sure why ‘therapist’ has been put in scare quotes in regards to Mr. Teahen - I’ve seen it a couple of times in this thread. He seems to have a LCSW which (like Ms. Tawwab) qualifies him as a therapist. Not liking or disagreeing with his counsel doesn’t make him unqualified.

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I thought good therapists didn’t give advice but helped their clients determine their own actions.

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