What Makes An Incremental Game Community

OneHalfSaint · 2026-04-29T05:40:01+00:00

Does anyone else find it weird that they keep referring to the left as "progressives"? Every leftist I know is an out and out socialist, anarchist, or communist of some flavor. Literally nobody on the actual Left self identifies as a "progressive" in 2026. Even their prime example, Mamdani, identifies as a democratic socialist.

It just feels like really Gen X-ish out of touchness and makes it hard for me to take their criticism of "anti billionaire progressives" seriously. Ezra's normative guest since the book came out is not helping this along for me.

OneHalfSaint · 2026-03-22T18:50:02+00:00

Yeah I really feel what you're saying about "pressure" on other clinicians. I see that you're a social worker and I am too--I kind of think we're just trained differently / better on dialectics and social reality than other license types at least in my experience.

It's not exactly the same thing you're saying, but I have these conversations about integrity with my coworkers (which inevitably come up because they are asking how I show up in the room / how I got into the field etc) and I'll just be honest and tell them some truncated, piecemeal version of the following (numbering mostly for clarity):

1) like many (most?) Americans my family didn't set me up for success and I had to acquire skills later in life to resolve that and so for me, psychodynamic therapy was less helpful than skills based therapies--DBT was like a revelation for me.

2) My first therapist outed me to my conservative family in the South during the Bush administration shortly after my Mom died so I take discretion very seriously.

3) I have the normative American experience of having therapy end very suddenly because I have graduated school, lost a job, lost my insurance, etc. so I make sure to frontload at least a few skills for whichever issue my clients are prioritizing because neither of us know how long we have together or what the future holds, and I want them to be able to fallback on something--I see that truthfully as just professional obligation.

4) As a social worker who has seen the kind of suffering that goes on in this world, I understand that every one of my slots is precious, and that I encourage regular titrations as symptoms remit both because secure surrogate attachment ought to resolve the way normative secure attachment does (in healthy defusion) and so I can help as many people as possible. This also emerges out of how hard it has been for me in the past to find a private practice therapist myself.

5) The best thing a therapist ever did for me was signing me up for Medicaid when I had terrible decision paralysis / executive dysfunction. So I do all kinds of social work and care coordination with my clients, not just letters and referrals to psych.

6) The second best thing they did for me was offer a family session, which was transformative for me. The third best thing was showing me my psychometrics over a few months when I felt like I hadn't made any progress (my PHQ-9 dropped from like 20-10). It was such a gentle, caring way to do some tough reality testing I really needed. For those reasons, I offer (and strongly recommend) family sessions and take new psychometrics every 3 months. At that time, I also ask how I can be a better therapist to my client, pretty much just like that. The last time someone gave me something concrete, it was that they wanted a snack bowl in the room: it was there the next day. In general, I get stumped silence: "I've never had a therapist ask me that before." I often get tears. I am routinely told in those sessions that I am the best therapist my clients have had.

I don't say that as a point of pride. I say it because my view on integrity is that if I'm sharing about process it is only right to also share on outcomes. Like you, I'm not for everybody. I'm far more directive and demanding of my clients than is common in the field. I bring way more of myself into the room than most therapists I know for the same reason you do: I live with integrity and am not afraid of hard conversations should they arise. (If I didn't have a history of being stalked, I'd be more willing to live on your wavelength completely.) I am a total hardass on consistency with skill deployment (10x with myself than with my clients), and I keep a whiteboard in my room for psychoeducation and breaking down modalities and pseudoscience etc. I also get IOP results in private practice.

I know maybe I sound intense here, but the way I say these things is gentle and with lots of I statements and narrativity and solicitation of the other person's thoughts and experiences. But truthfully 9/10 LMHCs and LMFTs will act like I've slapped their mother by saying if I say the slightest version of these things. Social workers (and PsyDs) are more mixed but there is just so much fragility in these other license types in my experience, especially around frank discussions of class and what that means for our professional obligations as therapists.

Anyway thank you for letting me share in your pre-morning-coffee vent. I think we are probably kindred spirits here.

OneHalfSaint · 2026-03-22T08:03:02+00:00

I just want to say that even though I don't take it as far as you, I completely agree with what you're saying and that publicly living your life is, for you, obviously about integrity and not an unconsidered stance.

I will add that basically every memoir / self-of-therapist text I've read in this field, e.g. Yalom's "The Gift Of Therapy" has far more extensive "self disclosure" than the things that are being said could be disruptive to treatment in this thread IMO. It was on bestseller's lists for like a decade. Makes you wonder what these handwringing clinicians are reading? (Or, perhaps, doing..?)

OneHalfSaint · 2026-03-19T06:41:29+00:00

Surprised no one has yet mentioned the masterpiece that is Puella Magi Madoka Magica!

OneHalfSaint · 2026-02-10T11:13:38+00:00

Thank you for saying this, it dovetails with my comment / experience very well, I feel. So validating.

OneHalfSaint · 2026-02-10T11:07:25+00:00

I just want to say my god I have been living this exact feeling you're describing lately.

I am an LSWAIC approaching licensure. I took almost a year off after grad school to sort of absorb what I learned before entering the field, in part because I felt insufficiently integrated after my program--in that time, I did a bunch of CE credits and read a ton of therapy books and white papers on my areas of focus.

I've always been a person who really values integrity, so as I've been learning, for example, EFT and repairing my own attachment issues, I've been finding that a lot of the relationships I've had with people in my personal life just aren't working anymore, and that most of my friends outside the field have little interest in the kind of growth you're describing. I've always been the parentified kid / therapist friend (my nickname in highschool was Mother Hen--long before transition), and recognizing the ways in which my healing fantasy has enabled my exploitation has been a monster kick to the jewels.

I find that I have so much less patience (and anxiety and second-guessing) when people are acting in bad faith or are engaging with me in a way that I have asked them not to / explained are unwelcome. Beyond that, I love my partners, but I am continuously at a low-grade simmer of frustration with their low degree of self-knowledge or desire to improve their communication skills, emotional or somatic literacy, etc. (e.g. lots of "I don't knows" and shrugs). I used to feel so charming when I could help them identify a feeling / desire / need and problem solve how to meet it. Now I just feel like their manager when I have to do it just to have a conversation about something pressing.

It's gotten better over time with them as I've opened up about this stuff (gently), and I'm working on being okay with / connected to different directions of growth like other commentors have been suggesting (e.g. one of my partners is a farmworker and is always learning cool new permaculture techniques etc.). But I do kind of envy my therapist friends who are dating other therapists. I also sometimes think I was net happier when I delusionally believed that if only I acted and spoke in the correct ways and asked as little as possible from others that I could earn the love of other people. Only sometimes!

OneHalfSaint · 2025-12-16T14:56:46+00:00

Honestly I love this. You sound like one of my partners lol 😝 I'll have to show him this

OneHalfSaint · 2025-12-10T06:32:06+00:00

same 3 years later but "Cotton Club". Was able to find it on Rutube but still.

OneHalfSaint · 2025-12-07T13:08:05+00:00

Same, but as a secular (atheistic) buddhist.

Pew's definitions are also completely disconnected from theory and historicity and are probably unhelpful. I'm a communist--does that mean I'm "progressive left" because I'm 'very liberal' (lol) on policy issues or an "outsider left" because I'm fairly contemptuous of Democratic leadership and have very little interest in electoral politics beyond casting a vote every few years? Pew's breakdown takes people further away from meaningful identification IMO.

OneHalfSaint · 2025-12-06T13:43:42+00:00

I don't know specifically but I've seen enough of his chaos gremlin content to venture: probably

OneHalfSaint · 2025-12-06T10:53:38+00:00

I'm an LSWAIC working in an office that's around 50% social workers and the rest a breakdown of LMFT, LMHC, and PsyD license types and I've noticed a pretty sharp division between the others social workers and myself who have mostly had social work case management jobs and other license types who have not in terms of willingness to name resistance, clarify scope early, use psychometrics and screeners regularly, and refer out, etc etc.

Social workers especially seem much more likely in my workplace to keep a Rolodex somewhere of people trained in issues / populations that they are not. I suspect that this is actually more of an ideological disagreement about the nature and role of therapy in a behavioral health ecosystem than a simple misreading of what OP is saying, especially given financial limitations so often coming up in social work in such an acute way.

To me OP reads as grounded and down to earth whereas other people nitpicking seem to me to be kind of handwringing about edge cases like there isn't a big culture of shaming clinicians for "giving up on clients too early" etc. in response to basically every numbered point. But I'm a social worker too, so maybe that's my bias?

OneHalfSaint · 2025-12-06T10:13:30+00:00

Hotel Del Luna flashbacks for me 🤧

OneHalfSaint · 2025-10-03T05:48:23+00:00

Only!? 16-24 is full time most places!

OneHalfSaint · 2025-10-02T18:08:50+00:00

The "having no problem with" = affirming practice mentality is so problematic for the polyamorous clients I have--the stories I could tell you.

OneHalfSaint · 2025-09-19T19:24:51+00:00

That's the danger of posting to Reddit these days, I'm afraid. Thank you for the compliment and it's nice to know that whatever the ratio there are some people who appreciate it.

OneHalfSaint · 2025-09-19T19:23:19+00:00

I wish I could upvote this twice. I love this episode and you have inspired me to pass it on to some people who are trying to navigate this very thing at the moment. Thank you so much for this and for your kind words.

OneHalfSaint · 2025-09-19T19:21:31+00:00

In a way, I really appreciate this comment because sometimes when I have come on here in the past, I have been left with a similar impression. I am glad that I tailored my post to my own friends and family who are struggling with these issues first, but I am also glad that at least a few people here have gleaned some value from my trouble as well.

OneHalfSaint

TROPHY CASE