The Holistic Psychologist, Trauma, + Mental Health on Instagram

It’s important to me that people understand my concerns include much more than what was represented in the Vice Article published recently.

Here is the full transcript from the interview:

Tell me a little bit about yourself, and a little bit about what drew you to the Instagram mental health community. (Not sure if this is the right umbrella term, would love to know if there’s any more specific lingo floating around!)

I am a trauma-informed psychotherapist (Licensed Associate Counselor, LAC) and yoga/reiki practitioner who works with individual clients and teaches mindfulness practices. I’m currently completing supervised hours to become a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of New Jersey. I’ve been in the Instagram “healer” space on and off since I started my yoga teacher training in 2014. Initially, I mostly used the platform to share about my own healing journey and to connect with other yoga practitioners. I started a new page as a therapist once I became a licensed associate in 2019. I was initially drawn to it because it gave me a way to connect with other people who prioritized healing and spiritual practice. As more mental health professionals have found their way to the platform, I’ve had more interaction with a diverse group of mental health professionals and been able to reach individuals who may not have access to mental health resources. Instagram also provides me the opportunity to connect with like-minded professionals, including trauma-informed therapists who tend to have what could be considered a “radical” view of mental health as opposed to more traditional approaches within psychotherapy.

When and how did you first become aware of @the.holistic.psychologist and/or Nicole LePera?

Nicole and I have followed each other since we both started our accounts in 2018. This was on an old account of mine that I have since deleted. I was not yet a therapist and came to her as a consumer initially.

What was your initial reaction to LePera’s content?

Initially I enjoyed her content; she posted primarily about the connection between physical wellness, diet, and emotional wellbeing, which is a topic I am especially interested in, and is an often overlooked aspect of mental health. I appreciated that she appeared to share up-to-date research and cited sources carefully in a way that seemed to remove the barrier between academic language and consumers’ understanding. I noticed that her posts quickly evolved, moving into sharing her own healing and spiritual journey; as a consumer, this resonated with me.

What is your view of her content and the way she uses her platform now?

Over time, several concerns arose regarding how LePera used her platform. Her posts began to take on a theme of “empowering” people by asserting that they take full personal responsibility for all aspects of their wellness, hence the term “self-healers;” it became clear to me that her messages were not just bypassing conventional psychotherapy messaging, but they were bypassing reality — that we are social beings living in community and connectivity with others who affect our ability to heal. Trauma often happens in unhealthy relationships, and it is within safe relationships that we can repair it. While we certainly can heal aspects of ourselves alone, more often the roots of healing are embedded within relationships and connectivity to others. As social creatures, we often need support from others, or are victims of systemic issues, such as poverty, oppression, abuse, etc. which stop us from having total control over our ability to heal.

For example, her promoted affirmations asserting “I create my own life experience,” or “the stories I create in my mind create suffering,” may be empowering to someone who has had a relatively safe and stable life and upbringing with privilege, space, support, and resources to heal. Essentially, her messaging can be supportive for an individual who has experienced typical childhood wounds that are an expected part of human social/emotional development.

However, those same messages applied to someone who has suffered trauma or is part of an oppressed group may feel shamed for having “created their own suffering” or feel responsible for that trauma. I view this tactical approach as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques, but without a safe and well-developed bond between a therapist and client. It could also be compared to adopting ideals of Buddhist equanimity and mindful self-awareness without the community-centered wisdom of loving kindness and interconnectedness to balance out those ideals.

LePera uses selected ideas and approaches, isolated from their larger therapeutic or spiritual contexts, which typically include a relational component responsible for their effectiveness. Her tactics can result in victim-blaming and isolation, which are unsafe conditions for the most vulnerable among us. Trauma is a subjective experience and, as a psychotherapist, to me what’s most upsetting about LePera’s techniques is that she, and many like her, has adopted and generalized the term “trauma” to refer to “childhood wounds,” and has created content that only addresses “childhood wounding” not actual trauma (Note: to clarify, trauma can include childhood wounding, but not all childhood wounding is considered traumatic to all individuals). The majority of people reading her posts do not know what “trauma” truly is in a clinical sense, and especially for those who experience significant trauma-related symptoms, her messages and misinformation can be very damaging.

What makes you want to speak out about LePera? How have you done so?

When I began to notice this pattern and my own feelings of discomfort about the harm she might be doing to vulnerable populations within her followers, I attempted to speak to her directly about it on two separate occasions. I can say with certainty that I was patient, compassionate, and direct about my observations. She refused to engage with me on the topic directly, and essentially used classic manipulation tactics to avoid discussing the specific issues I was bringing to her. By the end of our conversations, the attention had turned away from the points I brought up to her, to then having me question myself, my experience, and my observations as a clinician and individual to the point where I actually apologized to her for coming on too strong. This was all before her following really began to grow and she was under 10,000 followers. More recently I watched her have similar conversations with some of my peers on the platform and was able to recognize the gaslighting and manipulation tactics she uses to avoid these types of difficult conversations in which her approaches are called into question. Mainly, I’ve observed her remove comments from her own followers who share their negative experiences of her messaging. This promotes a false perception that her content is universally helpful and experienced positively by everyone who consumes it.

Similar techniques of bypassing and manipulation are aimed at her followers as well. For instance, I witnessed and spoke with several individuals who followed LePera convey that they were experiencing significant trauma-related symptoms and communicated to her how damaging some of her content was to them — LePera refused to take any accountability. Additionally, a former circle member shared her story; she had reached out to LePera to inform her that the practices were not working for her. LePera told her that she was “in [her] ego” and “[wasn’t] trying hard enough.” This is outright negligence coming from a mental health professional. It goes beyond unethical.

The reason I am speaking out is simple: I have a duty as a mental health professional to do no harm, to inform others in my community about their choices and mental health, and to uphold the values that drew me to this career initially, including my own integrity as a human being. I have witnessed how LePera consistently redefines and misuses clinical or mental health terminology promoting her own spiritual, new age ideas without communicating clearly that these approaches are purely derived from her personal beliefs, not evidence-based information. This lack of transparency is unsafe for survivors of trauma, and likely has people wondering “what is wrong with me?” if they cannot simply “heal themselves” through exercises like journaling and breathwork.

What do you think LePera’s audience takes away from her content?

I think her content can be very empowering for a narrow population at a specific point in their healing journey; but, again, as social creatures, the effectiveness of self-healing is very limited. I, myself, have used LePera’s “Future Self Journal” (FSJ) and have enjoyed it — the exercises included in the FSJ can help people become more self-reflective, less reactive, and more curious about their own internal experiences. That being said, these techniques alone can equally be damaging and dangerous to people with unresolved trauma or to those who do not have adequate support. For instance, LePera posted an outline of what a “spiritual awakening” may feel like; her description of this “awakening” included significant symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

LePera did not warn her followers that without proper resources, these same symptoms can result in self-destructive behaviors or suicide. She did not provide a disclaimer, stating that this post was based on her personal experiences and not mental health information. She did not encourage individuals to pursue mental health resources — in fact, much of her persona includes rhetoric which minimizes the efficacy of mental health treatment. This is ironic, as she utilizes her platform as a psychologist to further persuade her followers of her credibility, which is comforting to the many people who believe they’re reading fact, not opinion.

What do you think is the role of a mental health professional online? What responsibilities do you think they have?

The relationship between mental health professionals and online spaces is new and complex. We now have the far reach of social media at our fingertips, but if we choose to present ourselves with our credentials as our platform, I believe our commitment to continue to operate ethically does not change. As mental health professionals, we consider and protect the most vulnerable populations we serve. We are clear about the differences between mental health education and our own personal beliefs or experiences. We have full transparency about our techniques and approaches, and guide individuals to make informed decisions about their own mental health care. We offer proper resources and direct people to the care they might need if we cannot provide that for them. Our engagement in social media provides us the opportunity to maintain our ethical obligations to the populations we serve in similar fashions. What is unique about mental health professionals speaking on social media platforms is that we cannot know who is consuming our content; therefore, we have to be especially mindful and cautious about our language and how we present information that could be harmful to those who are listening.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about being a mental health professional online?

For most people online, there is a tendency to promote a version of ourselves that isn’t completely authentic. There is an ongoing conversation in the mental health field regarding “professionalism” when it comes to what we share on social media and how we “self-disclose.” Some believe that sharing anything personal could damage the value or credibility of our messaging. However, there are many of us who are more humanistic and believe in showing up more fully and authentically. Social media presents us with an opportunity to either falsify our credibility with the “perfectness” of our own healing journeys, or share in vulnerability with others. The misconception is that mental health professionals are “healed,” but we are all just human, make mistakes, and most of us are also actively working to heal as well.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about trauma?

Trauma is still being studied and researched, and therefore there are many misconceptions about it. Generally-speaking, many people tend to think that if something bad happens to them that causes ongoing pain, they are therefore traumatized. In actuality, the single or multiple experiences that could be considered traumatic to one individual may not be internalized as traumatic to another; therefore, “trauma” is largely subjective. Perhaps the biggest misconception about trauma is that one must meet the criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to be dealing with the effects of trauma. When people learn that any event can be traumatic, they misunderstand that to mean that all difficult experiences are traumatic. What is unfortunate about LePera’s influence in this aspect is that the experiences that she might define as “childhood wounding” may actually manifest as PTSD, and those with PTSD might compare their healing journey with those who simply have childhood wounding, in which case, we’ve missed a major opportunity to direct that person to the resources they need (counseling, psychiatric assessment, community support etc.).

What do you think about the way terms traditionally associated with therapy or mental health, like ‘trauma,’ ‘dissociating,’ ‘triggering,’ ‘codependency,’ and ‘addiction’ have made their way into the lexicon?

When ideas become mainstream, it is natural for them to be misinterpreted, reduced, misappropriated, and misused — similarly to how the term “trauma” has been promoted. This happens with concepts of healing all the time. Take yoga, for example; an ancient spiritual practice that’s now showing up in gyms for weight-loss. The intention and integrity of the practice of yoga has been appropriated to serve a contradictory purpose. We want healing to be mainstream, accessible, and easy; however, the terms you’ve mentioned are all incredibly nuanced, and healing is never a linear or “easy” journey. Without proper psychoeducation, these terms can become harmful, labeling, or far too generalized. It is up to professionals within the field to be especially mindful to use these terms appropriately and inform the public. If we can’t trust fellow mental health professionals to question themselves, to ensure they use caution, and remain open to feedback from colleagues to point out missteps, who can we trust to guide us in this fight toward increased mental health awareness?