You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

I can’t believe I’m doing this. 
My friend Soad Tabrizi — therapist, founder of Conservative Counselors, and a returning guest — asked if she could reverse-interview me about my own story, and I said yes. What came out was far more than I planned to share, and even if you’ve been following my work for years, it’s probably all new to you.
I talk about growing up a white girl near Compton and Inglewood in the 1990s, the racial scapegoating I faced as a child, and the nutritional and emotional neglect that shaped my body and nervous system for decades. I describe the father I’ve called an autistic narcissist, a mother who loved me but couldn’t see me, and the bullying that pushed me into a punk, anarchist, runaway adolescence. I trace the path from a near-fatal drinking incident at fourteen through cults in Hawai’i, the Hare Krishnas in LA, and finally a near-stranger’s intervention that sent me to college and, eventually, into this profession.
Why tell any of this? Because so much of what I teach parents — about willful children, suicide threats, meeting kids where they are, forgiveness, and how to apologize well — comes straight out of what I lived through, and went without. This is the person behind the professional, and the deficits that became my life’s work.
Podcasts are not therapy, and I’m not your therapist — but I hope my story helps you see your own kids, and yourself, with a little more grace.
Watch the full episode here on Substack. Click here to find it on your podcast listening platform of choice. Click here to find it on YouTube.
Soad Tabrizi is a licensed marriage and family therapist with more than 15 years of clinical experience. She runs a telehealth private practice from her office in Orange County, California, and is the founder of Conservative Counselors, a directory connecting clients with reality-based mental health professionals who share their values. Soad is a contributing opinion writer for Human Events and publishes a subscriber-supported Substack focused on the corruption and ideological capture of the mental health field, as well as commentary on culture and politics. She is known for challenging woke orthodoxy in mental health and encouraging conservative professionals to stop hiding their values and start speaking openly about them. She previously appeared on episodes 65. Conservative Patients in Therapy with Soad Tabrizi and 103. Truth, Hope, & Mental Health | Michael DC Bowen, Pamela Garfield-Jaeger & Soad Tabrizi.
www.soadtabrizi.com
www.conservativecounselors.com
https://x.com/SoadTabrizi
https://www.facebook.com/soadtabrizi
https://www.instagram.com/soadtabrizi/

[00:00:00] Start
[00:05:22] Warmth, Coldness, And Humility
[00:10:00] Ego Strength And Online Scapegoating
[00:13:45] A White Girl In Compton
[00:19:30] Childhood Nutritional Neglect
[00:25:45] The 1992 Riots And Racial Scapegoating
[00:32:00] Having An Autistic Narcissist For A Father
[00:44:19] Middle School Humiliation
[00:57:29] Punk Years And The Masc Mask
[01:06:45] Handling Teen Suicide Threats
[01:09:20] A Teenage Overdose
[01:18:14] Burning Out And Escaping To Hawaii
[01:22:45] One Cult After Another
[01:29:45] A Surprise Intervention
[01:36:15] Finding Belonging In Santa Cruz
[01:42:26] The Question Of Forgiveness
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.

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The psychedelic renaissance is here — money is pouring in, states are legalizing, and a federal executive order has fast-tracked ibogaine research for veterans. But if you’re a conservative, a skeptic, or just politically homeless, is there room for you in this movement? In this episode I welcome back therapist Karen King (last heard in episodes 81 and 97) alongside her co-author Wesley Smith, a small-c conservative who stumbled into psychedelics through a paragliding accident. Together they’ve written Sensible Psychedelics: Why the Psychedelic Renaissance Needs Conservatives, Skeptics, and the Politically Homeless.
We dig into what Karen witnessed firsthand in the very first therapist training cohort: a week spent dismantling privilege and naming genders rather than discussing consciousness, clinical skills, or facilitation. We talk about why that ideological capture isn’t just annoying — it’s dangerous. When a patient’s mind is cracked wide open in a psychedelic state, a facilitator who imprints their own politics is committing something close to abuse. Wesley shares the veterans angle, where an anti-colonial culture hopes to turn warriors into pacifists.
But this isn’t a cynical conversation. We explore the genuine healing psychedelics can offer — Karen’s work helping a dying woman conquer her fear of death, Wesley’s reconciliation with his late father — and ask the questions this movement keeps avoiding: Why does psychedelic culture skew so far left? Where are the liberals whose journeys made them more curious about people they’d dismissed? And can a self-regulating, transparent ecosystem — maybe even one built around churches — grow up outside the captured certification boards?
Are you an ROGD parent looking to do some deep, inner work for healing? A trusted friend has a special small-group offering called “Parents Heal Together” which might be a good fit for you. To learn more, please sign up here for a free informational webinar.
Books mentioned in this episode:
Sensible Psychedelics: Why the Psychedelic Renaissance Needs Conservatives, Skeptics, and the Politically Homeless — Karen King & Wesley Smith
How to Change Your Mind — Michael Pollan
Karen King, MS, LMHC, LPC is a psychotherapist with more than 20 years of experience helping adults navigate trauma, anxiety, grief, and life’s deepest transitions. The former founder of a multidisciplinary behavioral health clinic, she specializes in contemplative and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. With Wesley Smith, she co-authored the forthcoming Sensible Psychedelics: Why the Psychedelic Renaissance Needs Conservatives, Skeptics, and the Politically Homeless, which explores how psychedelics can bridge cultural divides rather than deepen them. Find her therapy practice at NewMindTherapy.com. Karen also hosts the Nuanced Therapist Network, a private, vetted community for heterodox therapists.
Wesley Smith is a “small c” conservative psychonaut and writer working to bring the psychedelic renaissance out of the counterculture and into the living rooms of average Americans. After a head injury led him to explore nontraditional paths for healing, he found that psychedelics can deepen the values conservatives hold dear — faith, family, duty, and personal responsibility. His co-authored case in Sensible Psychedelics pairs evidence-based research with a culturally grounded argument for humility, gratitude, and moral clarity.

[00:00:00] Start
[00:03:15] Trump's Executive Order and State Psychedelic Laws
[00:06:57] A Conservative's Accidental Path to Psychedelics
[00:14:45] Karen's Path Through Ketamine-Assisted Therapy
[00:18:50] Ideological Capture in Psychedelic Training
[00:21:52] Imprinting Values, Vulnerability, and Veterans
[00:29:07] Ketamine Case Study and Personal Growth
[00:35:56] Why the Psychedelic World Skews Left
[00:44:52] How Psychedelics Broadened Wesley's Empathy
[00:48:33] Therapy as Dismantling Civilization
[00:52:23] Regulation, Transparency, and Psychedelic Churches
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 L...

Retired Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice Elspeth Cypher returns to the podcast (her first appearance was episode 183) to map the legal landscape of the gender turf wars, fought on four major frontiers: prisons, schools, sports, and therapy. As president of the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), Elspeth walks me through the Chandler case challenging California’s SB 132, which eliminated all gatekeeping for men seeking transfer into women’s prisons, and the protective orders finally winning women in federal facilities some measure of relief. We discuss the aftermath of Skrmetti, Mahmoud, Chiles, and the BPJ sports ruling — and why a Supreme Court victory on paper doesn’t translate smoothly into changed practice on the ground.
We also explore how women’s speech has been silenced across millennia, from the scold’s bridle to modern cancelation; what “radical feminist” means to her; the ethics of surrogacy; the falsification of birth certificates; WoLF’s remarkable new executive director, Jasmine Faulk, who escaped Saudi Arabia; the FTC’s fraud case against WPATH; and why parental authority has to be established early. This conversation asks: when nearly 200,000 women are incarcerated in facilities an unknown number of men can now enter, who is defending their right to safety, privacy, and dignity?
Elspeth B. Cypher retired from the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts in 2024. She is president of the board of directors of the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), a nonpartisan radical (meaning "root") feminist organization dedicated to the rights of women and girls. She is also a founding member of the Gender Critical Law Society. Follow her on X @ebclaw or here on Substack Elspeth Cypher. Email: boardpresident@womensliberationfront.org.

[00:00:00] Start
[00:03:51] How Women's Speech Gets Silenced
[00:12:23] What Radical Feminism Really Means
[00:17:23] The Ethics of Surrogacy
[00:24:01] Falsified Birth Certificates and Identity
[00:28:27] WoLF's New Executive Director
[00:32:03] Chandler Case: Men in Women's Prisons
[00:39:15] Protective Orders in Federal Prisons
[00:47:30] Skrmetti, Mahmoud, and Chiles Rulings
[00:54:29] Supreme Court on Girls' Sports
[00:57:12] Four Frontiers of the Gender Battle
[01:00:30] Counting Women in US Prisons
[01:09:30] Gender Identity in School Curricula
[01:14:06] Parental Authority Starts Early
[01:19:08] FTC Fraud Case Against WPATH
[01:24:10] Final Words of Wisdom
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 SUBSTACK 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 ★

I'm welcoming back filmmaker Simon Esler, who first appeared on this podcast back on episode 54 to discuss his documentary Cut: Daughters of the West. This time, we're diving into his new docuseries You Are Here, which explores the landscape of cognitive warfare—the idea that human cognition itself has become the most contested territory in modern conflict.
We start with the chilling case of Barry Neufeld, a Canadian school board trustee who was fined $750,000 for refusing to believe that children can be born trapped in the wrong body—what the judge's ruling called "existential denialism." From there, we explore how Canada's human rights laws and conversion therapy legislation have embedded gender identity ideology into the legal framework, silencing detransitioners and punishing dissenters. Simon and I discuss how our minds are conditioned by narratives we've never examined, how meta-perceptions warp our view of political opponents, and what Iain McGilchrist's work on brain hemispheres reveals about Western cognitive vulnerability. We also get into the concept of cognitive entrenchment, moral inversion, and the historical parallels between modern ideological capture and ancient child sacrifice in Carthage. Simon shares what's next for his series and talks about the Reclaiming Birth Conference, where he's working to empower families to take back sovereignty over pregnancy and birth.
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist
Simon Esler is a committed defender of families & the lost art of free thought. A winding career path as an actor, theatre maker, ordained minister and mindfulness entrepreneur lead him to becoming a professional content creator & independent filmmaker. His latest docuseries, You Are Here - Reconnaissance for the War on Perception, is now streaming at dauntlessdialogue.com. The rest of Simon’s work can be found at simonesler.com, where he hosts an array of films, series, courses & resources focused on leveraging the pressures of modern war to foster personal growth and collective resilience.
To partner with Simon’s Leaving the Line Studio for content creation, filmmaking, and brand strategy check out his full portfolio.
Reclaiming Birth Conference: reclaimingbirthconference.com — a conference in Canada in September focused on empowering families around natural birth; Simon is emceeing
X (Twitter): @SimonEsler
Instagram: @simon_esler1111
Substack: Simon Esler / Subversive Clarity

[00:00:00] Start
[00:01:27] Cognitive Warfare as the New Battlefield
[00:03:10] Barry Neufeld and the SOGI 123 Curriculum
[00:05:15] Fined $750K for "Existential Denialism"
[00:07:57] Gender Identity as Compelled Religious Belief
[00:10:11] Canada's Human Rights Laws and Bill C-16
[00:13:18] Gender Identity as a Shield Against Accountability
[00:19:17] Detransitioners Silenced in Canada
[00:24:33] Recognizing Our Own Cognitive Conditioning
[00:28:06] How Media Narratives Mirror Personal Anxiety
[00:29:45] Meta-Perceptions and the 400% Violence Gap
[00:35:32] What Is Fifth Generation Warfare
[00:40:01] Moral Inversion Through Cognitive Manipulation
[00:47:25] Cognitive Entrenchment and Thinking Outside Your Domain
[00:49:18] When Ideological Capture Endangers Children
[00:53:31] Child Sacrifice in Carthage as a Modern Warning
[00:59:05] Collective Morality and Centralized Culture
[01:02:34] The Reclaiming Birth Movement
[01:08:47] Finding Purpose in Defending Free Thought
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 ...

I'm so glad to welcome back my friend Kim O for her third appearance on the show. Kim is a relational soul coach and author who works directly with ROGD-affected teens and their parents — one of a very small handful of people doing work that closely mirrors my own. In this conversation, we dig into what it actually looks like to believe in your child's soul when everything about their behavior is screaming at you to panic.
Kim shares how shifting from fear and worry energy to genuine belief in her own son's potential transformed their relationship — and how she now coaches families to do the same. We explore what I call strategic and what Kim calls clever: non-threatening, indirect approaches that plant seeds of growth without triggering the ego defenses that gender ideology has shored up in these kids. We talk about the power of fun and play in rebuilding connection, the danger of suggestion-based parenting, setting real boundaries around devices, and why personality typing tools like the Enneagram can actually give girls a healthier outlet for the same identity-seeking impulse that gender ideology exploits. Kim also introduces her new parent and teen workbook journals, designed to create structured moments of connection and self-reflection for families who don't know where to begin.
Kim O is a Relational Soul Coach and author. She utilizes Conscious Principles, Presence, and Authenticity Mapping to awaken you to your greatest power, your Conscious Authentic Self. Through inner child work and profound mindset strategies from the stoics and sages, unhealthy coping mechanisms diminish, leaving your empowerment and high relational intelligence in the wake. As a coach, she provides personal, alchemical stories of trauma turned into gold. If she did it, so can you! Contact and find her resources at linktr.ee/heartworku
Kim's workbooks:
My Role as the Parent of a Teen: a Journal that Guides YOU to Lead & Create Connection
Who Am I? a Teen’s Journal of Self-Celebration & Connection 

[00:00:00] Start
[00:02:10] Shifting From Fear to Belief Energy
[00:06:45] Celebrating Teens and the Teen Brain
[00:10:15] The Weekly Check-In and Connect
[00:16:15] Practicing Belief When Your Kid Is Nasty
[00:20:35] Rupture, Repair, and Strategic Apologizing
[00:25:00] Untangling Emotion From Gender Identity
[00:32:15] Parents Who Never Rebelled
[00:35:00] Rebellion as the Spirit of Adventure
[00:40:00] Guilt, Self-Forgiveness, and Planting Seeds
[00:45:00] Social Media and the Immature Brain
[00:49:06] Fun, Play, and Suggestion-Based Parenting
[00:55:45] Chores, Boredom, and Preparing for the Road
[01:01:00] What Is the Role of the Teen and Parent
[01:07:53] Coaching Under a Different Name
[01:11:19] Personality Typing as an Alternative to Gender
[01:18:15] Myers-Briggs and Breaking Gender Stereotypes
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 ★