When VICE first covered LePera and the #selfhealers movement in April, Philadelphia-based cognitive behavioral therapist Marla Deibler called the tenor of LePera’s work “irresponsible and unethical,” particularly her support of non-evidence-based or debunked theories that range from shaky to scientifically unsupported, like physical trauma storage, polyvagal nerve theory, and EMF pollution, presented as fact on LePera’s Instagram feed and elsewhere, like her YouTube channel. These are things I teach every day now because they lead to immense healing.” “I wish I had been taught more about trauma, epigenetics, and the importance of conscious awareness. “I was trained that all people can do is basically manage symptoms,” LePera told Forbes. A Forbes profile from January (when she only had 1.5 million Instagram followers) described her as a “leading” voice in questioning the mental health establishment. LePera categorizes these rejections as part of the #selfhealers movement she founded in 2018. “In my experience (and from the other therapists who’ve confided in me) this rarely leads to healing.” In a post from December 2018, LePera discouraged her followers from seeking a diagnosis for mental illness and “identifying with their disorder,” because “the thoughts you have around diagnosis are the most powerful deciders between sickness and wellness.” In a post from November 2018, LePera explicitly discouraged talk therapy as a route for treating trauma: “Traditional psychology is based around the idea that you can spend week after week talking about trauma and make improvements,” she wrote. But LePera takes this to an extreme, promoting the idea of total personal responsibility for issues including trauma and mental illness, encouraging her followers to eschew the mental health establishment and widely accepted treatment options, like therapy and medication in favor of “self-healing.” Telling people they have the power to solve their own problems is one of the stickiest tenets of pop-psychology-driven self-help gurus ranging from Tony Robbins to Marianne Williamson base their advice around it. Per LePera, we have all of the tools we need to heal, especially from childhood trauma, within reach. She calls the process she promotes “self-healing,” although the principal central to it could also be described as self-determination. LePera’s work centers on the self and “empowerment,” and how personal choices affect our mental, physical, and spiritual wellness. Her graphics explaining trauma, the “reparenting” process of setting boundaries and building up self-love, and “ego work” net tens of thousands of likes per post.Īctress Hilary Swank left a glowing comment on one of the account’s most recent posts: “I so wish I had known you 25 years ago when I started my journey down psychology lane… I get more from your posts than my years of sit downs. Except that LePera, better known as is a psychologist with a PhD, a booming online therapy business, and 2.6 million Instagram followers as of this writing by the time this story is published, she’ll likely have more. Normally, this kind of exchange would be of little concern-there are tons of people on social media with potentially harmful opinions.
“My deepest belief is that we are 100% responsible for our thoughts, behaviors, and reactions,” she wrote in a later message.
“I listen to many mentors in this arena who are of different races and grew up in poverty talking about how this very idea changed their lives,” she wrote. In the conversation that ensued, LePera defended her stance.
0 kommentar(er)
