Like Peterson, I make my living by thinking and writing about therapy and psychology. I have a caseload of about 50 people at an outpatient clinic in Chicago, so I'm familiar with the rhythms of a therapy session. I was deeply troubled by what I saw in Peterson's session with Nestor. First, and perhaps most obviously, Peterson makes no attempt at remaining neutral throughout the conversation; he broadcasts his beliefs about gender and liberalism. Neutrality has always been a somewhat fraught subject area for mental health experts. Beginning with Freud, classical psychoanalysts cautioned therapists to strive for neutrality in their dealings with patients. The goal of this was not to come across as cold but rather to be a blank screen upon which patients could enact their prior relational patterns, the hope being that this would then lead them to increased insight and possibly healing. This is easy to say but difficult to practice;
Freud himself did not follow this rule, though some who shared his ideology tried to. Later, more relationally oriented therapists would contend that this was an impossible goal.
But how Peterson intervenes in his discussion with Nestor is unlike anything either camp would recommend. Neutrality may not always be possible, but boundaries are essential for therapists to maintain regardless of their theoretical orientation, and Peterson has no interest in them. This is in contrast to traditional therapy—for example, if I bring too much of my personal identity into my work, that vastly narrows the scope of whom I can effectively treat. Beyond that, the goal of therapy is not to get your patients to think like you but to empower people to become the best version of themselves. Only seeing people who adhere to your narrowly confined ideology, and then using the time in session to justify this ideology, isn't therapeutic.
