You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

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.

Noelle offers a striking analogy: a healthy immune system expels real threats, but what we're seeing now looks more like an autoimmune disorder, where people can no longer tell what is dangerous from what is merely difficult. We explore Bowen's concept of differentiation, why chosen family so often fails the people who rely on it, and why parents can feel like an existential threat to a trans-identified young adult. We also look at estrangement over voting and COVID, TikTok psychologists, and the despair hidden in the line, "I didn't choose to be born."

I share some of my own story with my mother, and we talk about gray rocking, boundaries that preserve a relationship rather than end it, and why the father in the prodigal son story is a model for parents facing estrangement today.
Books mentioned in this episode:
No Contact: How a Seductive Ideology Broke Families and Friendships and How We Can Repair Them — Noelle Mering
Awake, Not Woke: A Christian Response to the Cult of Progressive Ideology — Noelle Mering
Theology of Home book series — Noelle Mering (co-author)
Mere Christianity — C.S. Lewis
All books mentioned on this podcast can be found in my new and improved bookshop!
Noelle Mering is a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the author of No Contact: How a Seductive Ideology Broke Families and Friendships, and How We Can Repair Them and Awake, Not Woke. She is also the co-author of the Theology of Home book series. Her work focuses on family, culture, and the forces shaping our relationships. She lives in Southern California with her husband and is the mother of six. Find her writing at: https://noellemering.substack.com/ and her work with the EPPC at https://eppc.org/author/noelle_mering/

[00:00:00] Start
[00:01:02] Why Noelle Wrote No Contact
[00:02:47] Justified No Contact and the Autoimmune Analogy
[00:06:07] How Ideology Equates Disagreement With Abuse
[00:10:45] Political Tribe vs. Family and Chosen Family
[00:17:03] Why Chosen Family Often Fails
[00:24:43] Why Parents Threaten a Trans Identity
[00:30:19] The Insatiable Nature of Gender Ideology
[00:33:58] Stephanie's Coaching Work and Ally Siblings
[00:38:35] Estrangement Over Voting and COVID
[00:44:36] Could My Team Be Wrong?
[00:52:19] TikTok Psychologists and Spiritual Despair
[00:56:11] Stephanie on Her Mother and No Contact Threats
[01:04:36] Gray Rocking a Limited Parent
[01:10:09] Triggers and the Empowerment Delusion
[01:15:59] Outrage, Narcissism, and the Accuser
[01:31:15] Remedies and the Prodigal Son's Father
[01:40:31] How Grace Changes Minds
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.

PODCOURSES: use code SOMETHERAPIST at LisaMustard.com/PodCourses

PRODUCTION: Looking for your own podcast producer? Visit PodsByNick.com and mention my podcast for 20% off your initial services.

MUSIC: Thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude & permission.

For more about this podcast visit sometherapist.com.

To support this show, please leave a rating & review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe, like, comment & share via my YouTube channel. Or recommend this to a friend!
Learn more about Do No Harm.

Take $200 off your EightSleep Pod Pro Cover with code SOMETHERAPIST at EightSleep.com.
Take 20% off all superfood beverages with code SOMETHERAPIST at Organifi.
Check out my shop for book recommendations + wellness products.
Show notes & transcript provided with the help of SwellAI.
Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission.

Watch NO WAY BACK: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care (our medical ethics documentary, formerly known as Affirmation Generation). Stream the film or purchase a DVD. Use code SOMETHERAPIST to take 20% off your order. Follow us on X @2022affirmation or Instagram at @affirmationgeneration.
Have a question for me? Looking to go deeper and discuss these ideas with other listeners? Join my Locals community! Members get to ask questions I will respond to in exclusive, members-only livestreams, post questions for upcoming guests to answer, plus other perks TBD.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

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.

Kristopher Kaliebe, MD, is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. He is Board Certified in Psychiatry, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Forensic Psychiatry. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP). His clinical work has been primarily in University clinics, Federally Qualified Health Centers and juvenile corrections. At USF, Dr. Kaliebe instructs medical students, psychiatry residents, child and adolescent psychiatry fellows, and forensic psychiatry fellows. From 2013-2021 he served as co-chair of AACAP's Media Committee. From 2016 to 2022 he was the liaison between the AACAP and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Kaliebe's publications and presentations include a wide range of topics, including the effects of digital technologies, gender, psychotherapy, corrections, mind-body medicine, nutrition, and mental health in primary care settings. He is concerned about naïve interventionalism and groupthink within the medical and mental health systems. Follow him on X @drkaliebe. Read the article, What AJP Just Published—and What It Didn’t.
[00:00:00] Start
[00:05:05] Why Parents Can't Find a Trustworthy Psychiatrist
[00:11:57] Treating a Kid Who Demands Affirmation
[00:16:07] The AJP Letter and the Silencing of Debate
[00:26:26] Heuristics and Biases Driving Clinicians
[00:36:05] Rationalizing, Rescuer Complex, and Reaction Formation
[00:45:32] Informed Consent and the Push for Activism
[00:52:32] Placebo and Nocebo Effects in Gender Medicine
[00:57:18] Why Belief in Treatment Shapes Outcomes
[01:01:16] Where Psychiatry Goes From Here
[01:09:41] Holistic Treatment, OCD, and Intrusive Thoughts
[01:16:30] Suicide Threats, Rewards, and Iatrogenic Harm
[01:21:22] Planning a Controlled Crisis
[01:24:05] Finding a Psychiatrist You Can Trust
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.

PODCOURSES: use code SOMETHERAPIST at LisaMustard.com/PodCourses

PRODUCTION: Looking for your own podcast producer? Visit PodsByNick.com and mention my podcast for 20% off your initial services.

MUSIC: Thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude & permission.

 ALL OTHER LINKS HERE.

To support this show, please leave a rating & review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe, like, comment & share via my YouTube channel. Or recommend this to a friend!
Learn more about Do No Harm.

Take $200 off your EightSleep Pod Pro Cover with code SOMETHERAPIST at EightSleep.com.
Take 20% off all superfood beverages with code SOMETHERAPIST at Organifi.
Check out my shop for book recommendations + wellness products.
Show notes & transcript provided with the help of SwellAI.
Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission.

Watch NO WAY BACK: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care (our medical ethics documentary, formerly known as Affirmation Generation). Stream the film or purchase a DVD. Use code SOMETHERAPIST to take 20% off your order. Follow us on X @2022affirmation or Instagram at @affirmationgeneration.
Have a question for me? Looking to go deeper and discuss these ideas with other listeners? Join my Locals community! Members get to ask questions I will respond to in exclusive, members-only livestreams, post questions for upcoming guests to answer, plus other perks TBD.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Watch the video for the site tour. Click here to watch this on YouTube. Click here to watch it on Substack.

If you take one thing from today’s episode, let it be this: parents of gender-confused youth can now take a quiz on my website to identify which archetypal themes they’re struggling with and which ROGD Repair lessons can help. That’s the big news here.
If you take a second thing from today, let it be this: all my websites got a makeover. Whether you’re a listener, course member, client, or otherwise interested in anything I do, you’ll find the resources easy to navigate. Whether you visit StephanieWinn.com, SomeTherapist.com, or ROGDrepair.com, you’ll find what you’re looking for.
The biggest criticism I hear about ROGD Repair is that it’s a lot, and parents don’t know where to start. So I built a quiz. It sorts you into parenting archetypes based on your disposition: whether you freeze under stress, doubt yourself, or obsess over research. I walk through a sample result, the Penitent, for a parent whose guilt makes every boundary negotiable, and show how the results point you to the lessons that fit your family.
I also cover how my websites now work as one connected site, with a Clients button that always gets you where you need to go, and a rebuilt Bookshop. Then I explain why I trained RepairBot to ask more questions and give shorter answers, even though some of you found that frustrating. Good help depends on knowing your child’s personality and your relationships, not on generic scripts. Finally, I share ways to cut through the overwhelm: the “who this is for” summaries on each lesson, listening to the course like a podcast, and the new Unpacked Concept Animations series.
This honestly isn’t interesting to listen to, so if you’re an audio-only kind of person or don’t care about navigating my websites, go ahead and skip it. But please pass along the websites to whoever might need them.

[00:00:00] Start
[00:02:45] Why I Built a Quiz for ROGD Parents
[00:07:00] Quiz Results: The Penitent Parent Archetype
[00:14:10] Tour of the Connected Websites and Client Hub
[00:19:40] The Rebuilt Sometherapist.com Bookshop
[00:25:35] Why RepairBot Asks More Questions
[00:29:30] Listening to ROGD Repair on the Go
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.

PODCOURSES: use code SOMETHERAPIST at LisaMustard.com/PodCourses

PRODUCTION: Looking for your own podcast producer? Visit PodsByNick.com and mention my podcast for 20% off your initial services.

MUSIC: Thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude & permission.

 ALL OTHER LINKS HERE.

To support this show, please leave a rating & review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe, like, comment & share via my YouTube channel. Or recommend this to a friend!
Learn more about Do No Harm.

Take $200 off your EightSleep Pod Pro Cover with code SOMETHERAPIST at EightSleep.com.
Take 20% off all superfood beverages with code SOMETHERAPIST at Organifi.
Check out my shop for book recommendations + wellness products.
Show notes & transcript provided with the help of SwellAI.
Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission.

Watch NO WAY BACK: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care (our medical ethics documentary, formerly known as Affirmation Generation). Stream the film or purchase a DVD. Use code SOMETHERAPIST to take 20% off your order. Follow us on X @2022affirmation or Instagram at @affirmationgeneration.
Have a question for me? Looking to go deeper and discuss these ideas with other listeners? Join my Locals community! Members get to ask questions I will respond to in exclusive, members-only livestreams, post questions for upcoming guests to answer, plus other perks TBD.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

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.

PODCOURSES: use code SOMETHERAPIST at LisaMustard.com/PodCourses

PRODUCTION: Looking for your own podcast producer? Visit PodsByNick.com and mention my podcast for 20% off your initial services.

MUSIC: Thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude & permission.

 ALL OTHER LINKS HERE.

To support this show, please leave a rating & review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe, like, comment & share via my YouTube channel. Or recommend this to a friend!
Learn more about Do No Harm.

Take $200 off your EightSleep Pod Pro Cover with code SOMETHERAPIST at EightSleep.com.
Take 20% off all superfood beverages with code SOMETHERAPIST at Organifi.
Check out my shop for book recommendations + wellness products.
Show notes & transcript provided with the help of SwellAI.
Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission.

Watch NO WAY BACK: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care (our medical ethics documentary, formerly known as Affirmation Generation). Stream the film or purchase a DVD. Use code SOMETHERAPIST to take 20% off your order. Follow us on X @2022affirmation or Instagram at @affirmationgeneration.
Have a question for me? Looking to go deeper and discuss these ideas with other listeners? Join my Locals community! Members get to ask questions I will respond to in exclusive, members-only livestreams, post questions for upcoming guests to answer, plus other perks TBD.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

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

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.

PODCOURSES: use code SOMETHERAPIST at LisaMustard.com/PodCourses

PRODUCTION: Looking for your own podcast producer? Visit PodsByNick.com and mention my podcast for 20% off your initial services.

MUSIC: Thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude & permission.

 ALL OTHER LINKS HERE.

To support this show, please leave a rating & review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe, like, comment & share via my YouTube channel. Or recommend this to a friend!
Learn more about Do No Harm.

Take $200 off your EightSleep Pod Pro Cover with code SOMETHERAPIST at EightSleep.com.
Take 20% off all superfood beverages with code SOMETHERAPIST at Organifi.
Check out my shop for book recommendations + wellness products.
Show notes & transcript provided with the help of SwellAI.
Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission.

Watch NO WAY BACK: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care (our medical ethics documentary, formerly known as Affirmation Generation). Stream the film or purchase a DVD. Use code SOMETHERAPIST to take 20% off your order. Follow u...