What to Know
It’s one thing to separate your politics from a friendship or from co-workers, which is honestly nearly impossible as it is. But if your therapist is MAGA, how can they properly treat you and advise you if MAGA or the Donald Trump ddministration is the source of your trauma? A licensed professional counselor on TikTok by the name of Jeff Guenther says in a video that you just can’t be MAGA and also be a therapist, point blank.
He explains that it is impossible to treat a patient if you support everything MAGA believes in and that same patient is being targeted or traumatized by MAGA. The same goes for therapists who support ICE and are treating patients affected by ICE in the United States. It’s just not possible in this climate, and Jeff explains why.
Therapists cannot support the source of patients’ trauma and also treat them.
@therapyjeff You can’t be MAGA and also be a therapist. #mentalhealth #therapy ♬ original sound – TherapyJeff
Jeff explains in his TikTok that “you can’t hold space for someone’s trauma while supporting the system that has traumatized them.” And that’s it. No, not really, but for some, that’s enough to understand his somewhat hot take. Although most doctors and health care professionals in general should be able to put aside politics and human rights issues to treat patients, some patients might not get the right kind of care if their doctor or therapist can’t truly see their perspective on important things.
“Let me break this down for the MAGA therapists who are already typing their defensive comments,” Jeff says. “Being a therapist means following an ethical code. Every major mental health organization says you cannot discriminate and you must respect human dignity across all identities. When you support a movement that actively campaigns to erase trans people, rip apart immigrant families, strip away reproductive rights, and roll back civil rights, you are violating your professional ethics.”
He says that even if some therapists think they can separate their personal beliefs, he doesn’t believe it for a second.
“You think you can sit with your trans client terrified of losing health care when you voted for the people trying to legislate them out of existence? That is gaslighting,” he explains. “You think you can hold space for the undocumented woman having panic attacks about deportation while supporting the administration that wants to make that her reality? You are cruel.”
As a counselor himself, Jeff says he has the ability to challenge MAGA patients if the roles were reversed. But he doesn’t believe MAGA therapists can properly treat non-MAGA patients.
“I fired my therapist for being 150% condescending about how this political era has traumatized me,” one person commented on the TikTok post. And, well, that sort of proved Jeff’s point right there.
Someone else added, “As a therapist, I’ve always felt like this, and it is so refreshing seeing you talk about this and explain it so well.”
Another user wrote, “I agree. My neighbor is MAGA and a therapist here in Minnesota of all places! How?!”
Jeff later says in his video that because being a therapist means promising to do no harm to patients, MAGA therapists do harm in simply being MAGA, so it already goes against them as therapists. Jeff says that being MAGA “targets” people and “campaigns on harm.” And plenty of other TikTok users commented to agree and give him some virtual snaps, praising him for saying the quiet part out loud.
In fact, one TikToker commented on Jeff’s video, “Thanks for saying the really important things out loud. You’re the best therapist on this app.”
Other professions are directly affected by MAGA and ICE.
Other users commented to add that police officers, teachers, social workers, and medical doctors should all be in the same camp of not being MAGA and trying to say they are helping people. MAGA enthusiasts tend to have tenants of belief that go against so many marginalized groups that it’s hard to imagine how a MAGA-supporting professional in one of these fields might be able to properly help people.
“Hot take but this goes for police work too,” someone commented on Jeff’s video. “You can not be racist, sexist, ageist, or any of the ‘ists’ that harm people. You are there to help everyone no matter if they are victims or criminals. They are people.”
