Transcript
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Called to Healing, season two, episode two. I am Ksera Dyette doctor, for those of you in the audience, and I do have my degree that I can show you. And my pronouns are her, and I'm a licensed clinical psychologist located in Massachusetts on the unceded lands of the Pawtucket people.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And I am joined by
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Hi, everybody. Welcome. I'm Blanca Torres. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist practicing in the state of Nevada, which is also unceded territory of the Southern Pauite people, but I'm actually currently based in Mexico.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yes, and we encourage you to check out our show notes where you can see what land you occupy and also look to give back to land back initiatives. And for those of you who are not members of our Patreon,
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): please, please, please join. And at our higher tiers, we will be giving back a portion of our proceeds to various mutual aid initiatives, as well as land back causes. So do join and there are some great goodies on our Patreon for clinicians. So Blanca.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Today we are talking about social media therapists or mental health practitioners on social media and all the drama that has been going on in the past couple of weeks.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And, um... We are probably like a little behind the ki ki on it because it's June 1st, 2026 as we record this. But the conversations have still been going and we wanted to add our two cents to the mix.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And so before, yeah, and before we kind of jump in I wanted to ask a question to kind of orient our listeners Last season, even before we started recording, you and I talked about our perspective on even being on social media.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah, absolutely.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And for those who are new to our podcast or maybe don't remember what we discussed last season, can you refresh the listeners on kind of what you said about it at the time and if your perspective has changed at all since then?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Gosh, what did I say at the time? because Ksera I don't remember what I had for breakfast this morning, ah much less what I said. and I'm just kidding. me A little bit. um What I had said about social media is I was a little bit hesitant because being on a podcast requires...
Blanca Torres, LMFT: You got to do part marketing. And where do podcasts market? Social media. And so we're going to have be posting on social media. And I had my little private practice Instagram account, but I'm not a content creator. Shout out to all of you, including you, Ksera who actually create content ah content. A bitch is fucking tired.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Um, and I, gosh, I do not know how y'all do that. And, but regardless, I had a lot of trepidation, mostly just because, and if you've listened before, you understand my grad school experience was less than ideal. Um, and I was a little bit worried of any kind of backlash I would get. Obviously we've been doing this for about a year now and I,
Blanca Torres, LMFT: I have relaxed a little bit in terms of like the backlash related to specifically the people I went to grad school with and the professors of that program. Those people are not on my mind.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Couldn't don't even think about them anymore. um So I'm not as weary. um i so I guess my thoughts have changed, but maybe not as much as you as people might think or hope.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: um I have mixed feelings on therapists on social media. I think, Multiple things can be true at the same time. Number one, I think therapists being on social media has supported therapists in increasing their income, which like, who doesn't want that? I know I want that.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: I think these um therapists or mental health practitioners, I apologize, on social media, give often and often very good important and permit information that helps our clients be seen in a way that they never have before or give words to their experience that they didn't have before. You know, not even two weeks ago, I got a reel from a client ah through email asking me about, I saw this reel about CPTSD. Is it real? What can you tell me? You know, so there's so much
Blanca Torres, LMFT: value to mental health practitioners sharing information on social media. Where my relationship gets complicated is that I find therapeutic work or well, I find that my work as a mental health practitioner can be so, um gosh, I lost the word,
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Contextual, I guess, or I literally lost my, I literally lost it.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): That's okay. We can come back to it if you remember.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: none and No, no, what is the word? a Delicate. Contextual. Contextual. There's just, there's so much that can go into it that sometimes, you know, we want to post our hot takes on the internet and folks grab onto it. And like, I saw this, do I have limerence? I saw this, do I have borderline personality disorder? I saw this, i have AuDHD I saw this. And, you know, um I find it gets a little bit complicated. Nuanced is the word I was looking for. And so I think when you're a mental health practitioner on social media,
Blanca Torres, LMFT: It's hard to get the nuance. It's really hard to get the nuance. And I think that leads us into a little bit more of what we're going to talk about later. So I'm going to pause there.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah. I mean, I've certainly wrestled with this issue of nuance because there is an element of, and we'll talk about this when we get to Therapy Jeff, but there is an element of the thing that gets people looked at online, if you're really using your social media as a way not just get people finding out about you, but also to increase your revenue, there's a way that highly clickable content is the thing that's more marketable.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And it varies a little bit across platform. Like recently, I found myself posting a lot more on TikTok Instagram, because the people who don't mind that my videos are longer will hang out on my TikTok and watch all of them.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Whereas on Instagram, Instagram will tell you that if your reel is longer than three minutes, your video is longer than three minutes, then it's less likely to get views, right?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): They tell you that they will deprioritize your video and the algorithm.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Sure.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And my The Antiableist Doc Instagram account has been barred from advertising, even though I've never advertised. um And there's all of these blocks on it, which has made me like want to just give it up altogether because I'm like, I know what this is really about.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Right. I'm talking about ableism and liberation and all of these different things. And the meta highly faci$t algorithm doesn't like it. Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And so I think that I might my tension as somebody who actively creates content. is fighting the desire to have something that's highly clickable because that just doesn't resonate with who I am um with also wanting to be able to reach people.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And when I first started my social media, it was largely as an educational tool, um information, ah correcting inaccuracies that I saw.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): But as I switched to coaching, my social media has now become more about marketing because I'm also trying to reach clinicians for my coaching program.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Um, and I found, and I've, I posted this, I have like a welcome to my page video. I talked about how you're not going to find an AI version of me, right? Because you now can do an AI self.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And so for, yeah.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: For those of you who are listening and not watching, um I just made a very confused face.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah. I don't know if this is true on Instagram, but I know on TikTok, They've been pushing an AI self where you can have a likeness of you that then if you don't feel like getting on camera, the likeness can be like the voiceover for you, basically.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): um and
Blanca Torres, LMFT: And you just feed it a script basically and it makes your video for you.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): i don't I don't know how it works because I haven't looked into it and like for me to do, but I know that the AI likeness is meant to help people who maybe feel a barrier to getting on camera regularly um or they feel like I need to look good in order to get on camera, all of these different things, that the AI self can be the one who is doing the talking.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Okay.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Okay.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And there's somebody, Black clinician actually that I have been following, One who I loved their content. And then one day I noticed, wait a minute, this is not him.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): He's not real. It's an AI version of him. And that really bothered me um
Blanca Torres, LMFT: yeah
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And there's this tension between things that are meant to increase accessibility, potentially, and things that also feel like not authentic.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And then I have a lot of deep discomfort with willingly feeding my image into an algorithm.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And somebody might say, well, you're on social media, so it's being trained on that anyway. Fine, I understand that, right? That's a risk that I've taken, but I don't want to willingly, like... feed myself into an AI thing.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): So what happens is that i I say all this because then that means that I may post less. um And not because I'm worried about my image, but because if other people are saying things that I want to say, but better than how I'm going to say it, I'd rather center and amplify them than add to the noise.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And if I'm posting, it's because I really feel like I have something that I want to say. and if it's if I'm not, it's because I may be still thinking about it or I just don't think I need to do it.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And I recognize that means that my growth is slower and I have to contend with that.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And then the last thing that I want to say is that there is an element, and I don't think people talk enough about this, but I think there's an element of which posting on social media feels like a compulsive activity.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): You wake up thinking about what you want to say.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: You feel like you.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): You hear something and you're like, I should post about that. And you're almost living to create content.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Oh.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And when I notice that starting to happen, i usually back off.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): I'm like, oh, you're thinking about this all of the time. um And so these are some things that I've noticed that I think
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): people should talk more about because I'm fairly certain that it happens. And I'm, I'm almost certain that that's like the first sign that somebody is going to bottom out because we've, we've seen our favorite creators have their crash out or their depressive episode and they'll talk about it on social media.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And they're like you haven't seen me in a while. Here's why. And I think that there are signs, right. When you're doing content creation um that your mental health is being significantly negatively impacted by it.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: So thank you for sharing that perspective, Ksera That makes a lot of sense. And I think that that kind of explains maybe a little bit of some of the folks we're going to talk about coming up. But I just wanted to issue just like a disclaimer. I just want to say...
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Again, there's a real value to this information being, you know, posted. ah i mean, excuse me, mental health practitioners posting all about mental health on social media. um I use those all the time. i share them to client with clients. I say, hey, you know, last week when we were talking about finding a way to manage your anxiety in this way, hey, look, I found this real.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: So you can save it and it lists exactly what you need to do so you don't have to worry about remembering it, right? um So just want to say just because I don't want to be a social media therapist content creator, it doesn't mean that I don't find value in it um or that I don't even use it. I use it pretty regularly with my clients as well.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I also do. I have definitely texted my client, hey, like this relates to what we were talking about in session.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And i think you might find it interesting or or maybe there's a topic that they were really struggling with. And somebody has created a very highly relatable, like carefully curated memeable something that makes it easier for them to digest.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: yeah
Blanca Torres, LMFT: yeah yeah
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah. And so social media, media of any kind, has always been a ah major adjunctive to my work. And that includes like music and things like that, you know. um And so I see a a huge, huge value in that.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): So part of the reason that we decided to have this conversation, it actually started with Therapy Jeff. And it just so happened that since then, Cheyenne Bryant has also been a thing on the scene.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And we're gonna get to that. But by now, the clinicians out there likely know what happened. And a lot of the general public knows what happened.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): But we're going to recap it. I'm going to recap it for those who don't know, if you're like, wait a minute, I've been out of the loop. Here it is. So Therapy Jeff posted something on Threads um where it was on April 2026, where he wrote,
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Is there no dedicated national helpline for men who are scared they might sexually assault their partner? Or for anyone, for that matter. Like, if they're experiencing an urge and are worried their fantasies are turning into plans, who can they call immediately?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): and then he further followed up. I'm asking because I posted the content about men having these fantasies and what to do about them. And I wanted to end with something like, if you're a man experiencing these thoughts or urges, please call.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): But I can't find anything. And since then, there has been an apology video, which I'll get into. But Blanca, I'm wondering if you can just... I know there's been a lot of great analyses of the problems that with this.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And before I ask you, especially given your background and remind the listeners of your background and how it's relevant to this, um that i um have worked with this population before as well, um trained forensically.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And it is always a sticky conversation when we're talking about resources for this population, because
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): that there's almost a sense of like, lock them up, throw away the key, but then they get back out in society or maybe they were, they were never, you know, ah not in society and they still have to be among people and we don't actually have anything.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Right. um And so I think that what he was, unfortunately, doing is talking about a highly nuanced topic on a platform that does not support the nuance and responsibility that we need to have for that topic. And can you kind of talk about the other part of this and like not only your reaction, but things that you heard about it?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah, absolutely. So I guess a little bit of a reminder of my background is I do also hold a master's in human sexuality education, and I worked for years in the realm of sexual and reproductive health. And as hell as everything, the there's so much nuance to be had here. Now, please,
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Don't hear what I'm about to say as if I'm some sort of Therapy Jeff apologist because I am not.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): No, we are not, just to be clear.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: And n we are not. I saw that and I thought, oh, not this guy being all about what about the men's.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right. um but I was very angry about it. Lots of other people were angry about it, too. We are, I think, in a cultural shift.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Where, you know, the ramifications of patriarchy are now hitting men on a different level. And by that, I mean in that people are not choosing them as partners due to their own alliance to patriarchy, which also results in a significant amount of violence.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right. And so what I think Therapy Jeff is getting at is that this is a problem. Men, sexual assault, The rape group chat that led to this.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: I forgot about that. His comments came because of, um because someone discovered there was a, some kind of massive group chat, ah a website on how to, how to rape, how to rape.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): so It was a website. Website. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: And so he's highlighting that. although not well, that that is a problem. And how do we contend with that problem? Right? And the problem with his statement is that it implies that rape is some kind of intrusive thought or compulsive thought that someone can go to therapy and work on.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: When in reality, sexual assault, sexual abuse, is about power and control. It is not an intrusive thought. It is not based in a mental health condition that we can go to therapy or call a hotline to help.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Rape hardly, I apologize I'm going to have to look up the data and and send it and we can put it in the show notes. But isn't it true that rape is almost non-existent in matriarchal societies? One where there is no such thing as power and control.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: And so back to the point, which is that he has a smidgen of a point in that we need to there's something needs to be done about this. How in the world do we have a how to rape website with millions of hits per month or
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And also exploiting your own children and wives and drugging them and all of these different things that are happening.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right, exactly. um And sorry, I'm sorry, I lost my train again. But the the way we we, we don't deal with that through therapy, quite frankly, we need a cultural shift.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: We need men and we need men like Therapy Jeff, to call out these behaviors amongst other men to create a, um,
Blanca Torres, LMFT: There has to be social ramifications for abusers in order for this kind of culture and behavior to change. That means men need to hold other men accountable.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Bro, you hit your girlfriend. Nah, nah, I can't fuck with that. You and I can't be friends anymore. Right? That's the kind of cultural shift that needs to happen. And a lot of people see men who behave in this way and they think, oh, you need to go to therapy.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: But one, they are probably going to find a therapist that's a woman. Two, he's not going to respect her. And then nothing is going to change.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: So although we can kind of see that he has a point that this needs to be addressed and it needs to change, his hot take of the moment is certainly not the way to go about it.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Right. And what I was saying to Blanco when we talked about this and in pre-production was that people who actually work with this population who were talking about it were like, were saying like, no, like we have to address the power and control and the powerlessness that these men feel and the way that they're exercising that, right? Like the people who are actually doing the work
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And this is what I mean when I say that like, we can't, it is irresponsible to feel like we have to have a hot take on everything, especially if we're not actually moving within that scope of work.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And somebody might say, well, I have the right to comment. And yeah, sure you do, but you also you also need to be responsible for what you say. And you have to understand that there's going to be repercussions for what you say, which gets into sort of what is the liability here, right?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And our ethics codes have always had stuff about media representations of information and things like that, but they aren't fully caught up to like clinicians on social media piece.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): But to sort of wrap this up, Um, he apparently did an apology video, which I didn't know until we were making it to this recording. Um, but he said that he had shared the post on threads around the same time that CNN published an investigation about a network of men who drug and rape their partners, which many of us have probably heard about by now.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And he said to anyone who read my post and felt hurt or unseen by it, I hear that and you're right to be angry. Instead of centering survivors, I centered the internal experience of the men who might do the harming.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): I applied a framework that shifted attention toward the man rather than grounding it in the impact on the woman he might hurt. Men do this. I did this here. i was wrong and I'm very sorry.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): He specified that he also got the clinical substance wrong. noting that his framing of assault treated it like an intrusive thoughts problem, despite studies demonstrating otherwise.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And so the research shows that it's driven by entitlement and deliberate choices rather than thoughts someone is trying to resist. So everything that Blanca said. I misapplied an OCD treatment framework to a completely different issue and I was out of my scope.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): There it is, right? And he further said, while it is my responsibility, I didn't catch this on my own. commentors and other creators took the time and effort to educate me that labor mostly came from women and from survivors. I'm really grateful you shared that with me. I read what you wrote and I'm still learning from it.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): What are your thoughts?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: I guess
Blanca Torres, LMFT: I'm sorry. That's a fine apology.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): ah
Blanca Torres, LMFT: That's a fine apology.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): ye Yeah.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: We're all entitled to our missteps.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Again, he was trying to address an issue that deeply needs to be addressed. And he just didn't have, as he well stated, the scope of practice to understand the nuance and why that doesn't happen.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: um And I don't know. There was this great sub stack I read and I'll put it all send it to Ksera we'll put it in the show notes about a woman in Australia who successfully stopped a man from grooming his her daughter.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: And my thought is like, that man isn't going to call a hotline. How do I stop grooming this six-year-old? He's behaving in a very deliberate, measured way to gain trust and access to a little girl.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: ain't going to call a hotline, you know?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Right.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: So anyway...
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And we see this time and time again, right? That even if an intimate partner has some concerns and they bring it up, they're like, no, no, no, nothing's going on. Or if they like continue to persist, they're like, well, don't tell anybody about it. And I'm like, well, if you're saying don't tell anybody about it, then you know it's wrong.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Right. And, um I don't know if, um, I'm forgetting the name of the show right now, even though I had binged it. um but it's an undercover operation um where it's a team of women who try to catch predators, basically.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): um
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Oh my God. Cool.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And um they basically, they go undercover as if they're underage. um And, Just the the things that happen, you know, like all you have to do is watch a show like this.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Oh, it's atrocious.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And these are not, these are often husbands, right? Or they're working in places where they have access to people fill in the blank, right?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): It's not always some lone person who is just involved in random trafficking, right? It's it's much deeper than that. And so, yeah, You know, what we're talking about here is that this goes very deep and we live in a society where the infrastructure allows it to happen, right?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And I think what what people struggled with at the time was that they also dug up other posts of his that gave them a bunch of ick vibes. um And there was one that was...
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): I don't know if there was ever any comment about the nature of this post. It was very like highly sexualized in nature. And we're not saying at all that therapists can't talk about sex or anything like that. That's not the message there. um But there was ah a pattern of people talking about feeling like the vibes from him weren't quite hitting for them. And they were, you know. And I don't know how much of that is being like attributed to him being a male.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Right. um But I think the core of this that we were talking about is that the thing that makes people popular on social media is often the thing that's a part of their downfall.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): right? Because the hot takes, the ability to say something that people will hang on to, people will comment on, people create that environment, right?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): So Therapy Jeff has his own personal responsibility, but so do the consumers.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Consumers have responsibility because he didn't just get famous, right? He did not just get famous. People liked his hot takes or his quick notes on threads.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Like y'all, whoever the y'all is propped him up and nobody was holding him accountable at that time, right?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And so we feed this. And I think it's important, especially as we're living in an age where content, we can trust content less and less because we don't know even if real people are producing them.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): that we have to be way more discerning about how we are elevating people in the first place. So going rest that there. And we're going to move on to Cheyenne Bryant.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Oof.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: You know what, Ksera This is your... Yes. Let's do it.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): okay Yes, I'll give the TLDR again for the people who don't know what happened. But she is a coach who says that she's a psychology expert. and she works with celebrities.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): um And she became popular as a result of some of her live therapy, well, whatever, coaching sessions. with said celebrities.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And she was the Joe Budden podcast recently. And she slipped up here and there where she talked about being a therapist.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And she was talking about licensure and how, you know, you only need to be licensed if you want to take insurance, which is not true. And just a bunch of nonsense.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): That's a TLDR. And Dr. Raquel Martin, who is one of my favorites, I followed her for hot minute now. I think we've been on TikTok since back in 2020.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): She gave a very lovely, nuanced
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): analysis of all of the problems of that podcast appearance. She covered it all. including going as far as to say that she will stand with coaches, right? That it's not about her having a problem with coaches.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): It's about having a problem with somebody representing themselves as something that they're not.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And then in addition to that, the other controversy around Cheyenne Bryant is that she calls herself a doctor, but there's no evidence of her doctoral degrees.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And somebody from her program actually came out on social media saying, we were in the same program. And I can still get my transcripts, even though Argosy University closed. So what does she mean she can't get her transcripts?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And that person said that she was since the time she was in the program, she was trying to call herself a doctor. And one of the professors had to say, you can't do that because you haven't graduated yet. And her ah allegedly, she said, I've paid my money, so I'm a doctor.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Oh.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Now, this is allegedly, all right, this is what this is what her classmate, her former classmate said.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): i don't know if it's true, but the history and pattern with her, even with if you will dig into her time on the Touré show, um is one of highly self-inflated, large ego.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And even once she was asked to show her degree, um she was like, these people who are criticizing me are just jealous of me and jealous of what I've created. And I wasn't going to add to the noise, but I ended up doing a video where I'm like, those of us who are actually doing the work don't have time to be jealous.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): ah We don't have time, right?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): But I ended up doing a video because even my students were commenting on it and they're like, well, what does this mean for us? Like, are people going to look at our work as less legitimate? There's like a lot of questions that they had. And so all of her actions had a ripple effect.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And somebody said to me, well, she probably loves that people are still talking about her. And that's probably true, right? These people who with the large egos, attention is attention, whether it's negative or positive. But that aside,
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): What happened? Because you brought this up with me, Blanca, and I didn't know. i somehow had missed it. The people were criticizing Dr. Raquel Martin?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yes. and And frankly, I missed it too, which um I'm going to pat myself on the back and say that's because my algorithm is wrong. what it is but what I got was the response to the backlash so I started seeing threads that said things like well here there's a ah threader that I really like uh Keandria K-I-A-N-D-R-I-A and she said she
Blanca Torres, LMFT: But you know how they people post on social media, so-and-so and then so-and-so responding.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: So she posts Dr. Raquel Martin. Hey, so if you're a therapist, you should probably have a license. The internet. How fucking dare you? Another one.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: By Spiritual Home Girl. LMAO so dr Raquel Martin is dysregulated because a stranger on the internet said so. This is the main problem with social media. Parasocial relationships are becoming more dangerous. Confidently yet incorrectly assessing someone based on a third party interaction is wild.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: um And so this is what I saw. So I don't actually know and I could not find the people calling her, calling Dr. Raquel Martin dysregulated or the backlash. I saw the response to the backlash.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: um Which I was really surprised because she's not at all dysregulated her videos. She's just talking while black. And she made phenomenal points about licensing, criticizing licensing, right? Like we've criticized licensing in our podcast, but it's also very true that there's all sorts of avenues for healing, including a space for coaching. Shit, I booked a fucking spiritual tattoo with Reiki and sound bath and tarot reading and all this stuff. That is part of my healing, you know? um So it's really shocking to me that people are running around calling her dysregulated when really she was just trying to bring
Blanca Torres, LMFT: accurate information on what it means to be licensed. And being licensed, a licensed therapist doesn't just mean you can take insurance.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yes.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: It does also tie you to ethics boards, continuing education. And it it means way more than just you can take insurance. And we're not allowed accountability.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): It means accountability.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: And ah by the way, we're not allowed to call ourselves therapists if you don't have a license. So for what it's worth.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yes. Yeah. And that was really the core of what she was talking about, right? Is the lack of accountability and everything that was going on. And the other criticism that was lodged against her, which I did see, which I didn't say this, but Dr. Dr. Raquel Martin, for those of you who don't know, is black.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Cheyenne Bryant identifies as black. Dr. Raquel Martin is black. And so people made it out to be, it's a black woman attacking another black woman.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And Dr. Raquel Martin even said in her video, like, I will hold my ah community accountable with love, right? And so there is a little bit of an element of we should not criticize our people in public.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): um that ends up entering these conversations when it has to do with Black people. And I certainly understand where that comes from.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: yeah
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): There is enough happening to our community from the outside. I get it. And also, when someone is actively doing something that's really harmful, that, frankly, should not stop us from pointing out that it's harmful.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And where we've ended up now is that the internet, the whole internet is trying to do CSI with her degree, trying to figure out what the deal is.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah. the
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): People have sent the set the way back machine on the websites to try to figure out what she had how she had previously marketed herself.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: I think one of the things for me that was kind of almost scary about what Dr. Cheyenne Bryant said is that...
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): She's not a doctor.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Oh, I did it! I did it!
Blanca Torres, LMFT: I did it! Ow! My bad. I'm sorry.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): She's a doctor, allegedly.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: One of the concerning things ah that... this person said, um that was really scary for me was something about how like without a license, you have a lot more reach.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: And I'm just like, Ooh, what does that mean?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right. Because like, I think about my clients. Right. And I think about like, i don't know, someone in a, with a an ex who's not good at following boundaries.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah, of course I wish. Wish is a strong word. But of course, how cool would it be if there were a world where I could call that man and be like, stop that.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right. Or my client, a client struggling with a relationship with their sister, call that sister and be like, you know what? I don't think they meant this. Right. But obviously I can't do that because I'm held to an ethical standard where I can't break confidentiality. So I feel really scared by what she might actually mean by that and what that actually looks like in practice. um I find it terrifying, honestly.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah, well, and interestingly enough, though, even your examples, right? A good coach wouldn't do any of those things anyway, right? Straight up. Because like people we are empowering people to take action in their lives when we're coaching in a way that has necessarily views them differently than when you are taking the therapeutic stance.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And I say this for anyone who doesn't know who was listening for the first time that I am a business coach who has received business coaching. So I know what the difference is between the services. Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): But like that's also infantilizing them. Right.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: who
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And removing their agency. If we are over involving ourselves in their lives in that way. And we weren't hired to do family work, right?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Like, if that's the work that you're going to do, then fine. Like, the client is the family system. But that's not what we're talking about here. And I find that those kinds of actions are more about what the clinician wants, what the coach wants, than what the client may actually want or need, right?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): So I do think that, like, There's a lot of ways in which the desire to do those kinds of things reflect ego more than they reflect service.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah, absolutely. And I want to clarify, I don't recall that she said that's what she would do.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): No, no, no, no.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: But that's where my mind went.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): I know. You said you were scared.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah, like what does it gives me more reach mean?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah, yeah.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: And I love my I have genuine connections with my clients.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: And I don't want any more reach. I'm tired. It's like, you know what I mean? Just like you said, I don't have time to be jealous. i don't have time to want more reach than what is are I i am already containing.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. but The last part of this, though, that we wanted to talk about was the conversations around professionalism.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Specifically, that another ah large creator, Keanu, did a video about how people have a certain idea of what a therapist is supposed to be like.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And this came up around the whole Cheyenne Bryant thing because people were saying, like, she wouldn't be cursing. You know, therapists don't curse like that.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And we are not Cheyenne Bryant apologists. But one of the first conversations Blanca and i had when we were starting this podcast was that it was probably going to be rated explicit, not just for content, but Blanca's mouth.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): which is fine. and And that does not make you, right, any less of a good therapist, right?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right. Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): But there there is this that
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): of how we should show up publicly in order to be relatable um and in order to be considered valid. And some of that does have to do with white supremacy and colonialism and you know ideas of professionalism.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): um But I do think that there is a distinction between professionalism policing of people versus things that are just disrespectful, right?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And you don't have to be cursing to be disrespectful.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Absolutely.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And if you look at Cheyenne Bryant's social media career, her public career, there have been plenty of times where she has not been cursing, but she has been deeply disrespectful.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And the latest discourse has been going around about her basically using what sometimes happens in the black community when black men appear more feminine in nature, where she was basically implying that Touré was soft, that he was gay.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Oh.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): um She didn't come out and say that, right? But, you know, hes he has maintained for a long time that he does not believe that people should spank their children.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And she feels the opposite about that, that there are times where that's totally appropriate, despite the research. and And some people have been upset because they're like, don't defend Touré because he also has been accused of some, you know, sexual harassment or something.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): I don't know. I haven't looked into it. I'm not defending him. What I am saying, though, is that she has not. conducted herself in a way that is respectful of other people, right?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): There is a way that you can disagree with them without putting down aspects of their identity or dragging in a minority minoritized community, right?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): As somebody who supposedly respects people, and we've talked a lot about this on this podcast, right?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): That regardless of like your beliefs, right? Ideally, you would have basic respect for human rights in different groups of people, although those things may not always match up.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): um But she has shown herself to not to not be not to care about that more than she cares about herself.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Right. I don't know if there was anything that you wanted to say about the professionalism piece. I know I sort of monologued
Blanca Torres, LMFT: No, that's okay. ah Please. I mean, what is, God, so much to say about like therapists and professionalism. Wasn't there also some discourse going around about whether or not therapists can or should drink water during their sessions?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): I didn't hear that. But what I did hear was that somebody else who also is very popular, um and I commented my concerns, was saying that, you know, therapists who care about people don't charge $350 an hour.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And that got me upset because, like, it was an un-nuanced take.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Because it doesn't include all of the expenses that we have. And i think it would be better to say, and I say this as somebody who does business coaching, helping therapists create their practices, that there is a way to create an accessible practice that does not have to fully sacrifice you. Because I ran my practice for almost two years, the first two years, barely able to make ends meet for myself.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And I had nothing left to give to people because I could barely pay for my groceries. That should not be the standard for our profession at all.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): At all.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right. Absolutely not.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): So when we start policing each other about what we're charging, saying that a good therapist wouldn't charge this, that's where I can't hang with people. I can't hang with people at the un-nuanced take about that.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Now, you can't say that your practice is accessible and not have accessible options.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): That's a totally different conversation. But just to say, nope, if you're a good therapist, you don't charge 350. I can't, I can't.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah. Yeah. So I think that I definitely think, you know, we have another episode topic here in all the things that people criticize therapists on like drinking water, what you're wearing to session.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yes.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: I'm sorry. Even when I was working in an office, I'm going to need to sit for a long time. going to need to sit with some of the most painful things humans can hold.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: I'm going to be in jeans.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Right.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Or not anymore. now we're Now we're in the soft pants era because I'm nearly 40.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): yeah
Blanca Torres, LMFT: But, you know, and it does, me cursing, me drinking water, me wearing comfy clothes, none of those things change that I'm a professional in the field or that I'm a good therapist.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): right
Blanca Torres, LMFT: um And that's true for everyone. So I guess the only thing I have to say is we have another another ah episode brewing here.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yes, we do. We do. And so sort of the like close out this conversation, right?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Really what Blanca and I were thinking about, not just like adding to the noise, but putting this within the context of things that we've talked about in the past on this podcast, right? Like the issue of liberation and access to care.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And that it can be very easy to get lost in the sauce and think that we're talking about licensed practitioners versus coaches.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): When there's care for everybody in all kinds of different ways, it's more about accountability
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Absolutely. Yeah.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): and service, right? Right. Do you care about the people that you serve? Are you going to be accountable? And that even though Therapy ended up in his messy situation, he did take accountability, right? That mirrored pretty much everything that you said, right? Maybe somebody, you know, the the whole public of of women who helped him get there.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): um
Blanca Torres, LMFT: They are owed compensation.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Exactly. Yes.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Therapy Jeff
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): yes
Blanca Torres, LMFT: My Venmo is.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Right. Oh, and we also have like our one time donation link in the show notes. Like you can give us money for this labor. OK.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And so, you know, we really wanted to interrogate this in a nuanced way. There's no one where we said like, well, maybe Cheyenne Bryant. Yeah.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Cause I was going to be like, it's not all bad and not all good. But I mean, i we we even threw her a little bit of a bone, right? Because like, we're not criticizing her for cursing.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: No.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): We're criticizing, right?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: And she's allowed to be a coach. It's just, you can't call yourself a therapist.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Right. You can't call yourself a therapist and you can't disrespect like people's basic humanity. Right. like And so Blanca and I are always ready to have these conversations in a way that really thinks about what does it mean to actually interrogate this at all levels.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And we want to encourage you. the listener, if you've been having like these sort of knee jerk reactions, which we did to hearing these things, that we hope that this conversation has helped you sort of think about things in just a little bit more of a different way.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): So with that said, we are going to transition to being called to our bodies. Whatever you are feeling right now, tense, inspired, grieving, invigorated, it is all okay.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Let it be. You don't need to fix anything. Just pause. Now bring your focus to one small point inside you. your heartbeat.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): You don't have to feel it right away. Just notice somewhere deep inside, your heart is still beating. Steady, quiet, working for you.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): If you feel restlessness or tension, just let it be. Let your heartbeat become your anchor, quiet rhythm beneath the noise. You are safe to pause.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): You are allowed to feel what you feel. And underneath it all, your heart keeps going, strong and steady. Stay with that rhythm for just a moment longer.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And when you are ready, gently come back to us for moment of joy and or thriving this week. Blanca, what's your moment of joy or thriving?
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Good question.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Let me think. Well, they I do have a... Well, no, this counts, even though it still hasn't launched. So um i'm you might not know by looking at me, I'm a very sensitive person and lots of things make me cry.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: ah More specifically, things that bring me joy make me cry. And I was scrolling on Instagram the other day, as one does, And I cried to my millionth video of someone dancing salsa because I so badly want to. I've taken lessons in the past, but then the panini hit in life. you know So I have started the process to sign back up for salsa dancing lessons.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: um And this time I'm going to do it right and actually go to the socials instead of just go to my individual classes. um So my moment of joy and thriving is that I stopped blocking myself from doing this thing that I really want to
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): yeah
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yay.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): he
Blanca Torres, LMFT: What about for you, Ksera?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Well, I told you when we got on to record that today was really hard for me. um And so I was like, what ah what am i thinking of?
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And this is why like ah just a gratitude practice is so important, not in like a Pollyanna way, but just like truly grounded. um because i actually made an important step my partner speaks albanian and i have been wanting to learn and i've tried ling and i struggle because like latin-based languages ah have always been hard for me i've always done better with logograph based languages
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Sure.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): But I finally signed up for a online classes that I've been looking at with like a tutor. ah i am i was filled out the form to get my head a little little free class to see how I feel about it.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And then I'll go from there and decide. But I am committed. I've been looking at this for months. When I tell you for months, and I've just been like, I can do it myself.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): And I'm like, clearly you can't. ah
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Well, you probably can and you don't have to.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): that
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): No, it was more that I needed some sort of structured, like, if I was, it's another thing that I have to structure for myself when I have to structure so much in my life.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): I was like, I just need like an external, you know, and I need to have someone I can practice, conversate, you know, like lesson, things like that.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Right.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): So I do better when I have an external accountability source. Yeah.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Absolutely. yeah
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah. Yeah.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: I love that. I'm so excited for you. i know oh my partner doesn't speak Spanish and we are living in Mexico.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): yeah
Blanca Torres, LMFT: So he's doing one on one lessons and like immersion stuff. And so if I can offer you anything, find a show, you know, front and back and watch it in Albanian.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): I know. That's hard.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: I bet.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: I was wondering. Yeah.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): yeah Yeah. There's also like, you know, from Kosovo, there's some language in there. So there's like, there's other things mixed in. I'm like, what is the Spanish word doing here? Why is this French word over here? So I get, I'm like, wait a minute. Like there's like three other languages that have entered them.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Yeah. Now watching my partner learn.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: ah Wow. I mean, I obviously like I i i watched my parents learn the language throughout 40 years of my life, close to 40 years of my life and, and watching him do it.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: And now knowing ah it's tough. So I'm really proud of you. Good luck.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Yeah. So I'll update you. Hopefully I become more fluent. um But for now, I'll say thank you. felimin dar it bilanca ah ah And thank you to our audience.
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Well, they're not that. Bye.
Ksera Dyette, Psy.D. (she/her): Until next time, we love you all. Thank you for taking the time to be with us again. bye
Blanca Torres, LMFT: Bye.
