Before There Was Political Correctness For All Of America, There Was Political Correctness For Psychologists

Psychology training has carried a political correctness streak for as long as I can remember, and that streak got in the way of the help we were supposed to give. Somewhere along the line we decided that values are off-limits to teach and that faith belongs outside the room. Strip away the role models too, and I keep wondering what a society without any moral anchor actually looks like once it arrives.

The rule drilled into me was simple: don't bring up values or religion with a client unless the client raises it first. No critiquing their beliefs. No offering a different way of seeing things, not unless they opened that door themselves. Step outside those lines and offend someone, and you'd be answering for it. I crossed that line once. It cost me a job.

My view runs the other direction. Values should be questioned out loud, and beliefs about religion deserve to be talked through rather than quietly avoided. There are moments when political correctness gags us right when a person most needs to hear something plain. Picture the neighbor you'd actually choose. Someone with no values and maybe no conscience, or someone who holds decent values and lives by them?

People end up with values regardless. The question is where those values come from. Shut the conversation out of the classroom and the counseling office, and what fills the gap? The people pushing harmful ideas feel no hesitation about broadcasting what they believe and living it out in the open. A young person without role models at home, at school, at church, or through some mentor, one-on-one or in a group, will go find them somewhere.