A liberal arts college in Vermont is hiring a psychologist that blames “whiteness”, among other things, for mental health problems.Alberto Soto will serve as Middlebury’s Director of Counseling.Soto told the college newspaper that he wants to move mental health policy at the college in a more progressive direction.
Last month, Middlebury College hired Alberto Soto to serve as its Director of Counseling. In an interview Soto told The Middlebury Campus that “source of all our psychic suffering,” are “whiteness, heteronormativity,” and “patriarchal systems”.
“The body and mind cannot be healed solely by self-care and focusing on surviving,” Soto told the student newspaper. “At some point we must address and identify the source of all our psychic suffering, which is whiteness, heteronormativity, patriarchal systems, etc.”
Soto earned his PhD in psychology at Brigham Young University, a conservative, Mormon institution.
Soto cites a bad experience with a therapist in Idaho following the death of his brother as influencing the direction he hopes to move the college’s mental health services. He attributed the poor quality of care he received to a lack of cultural competence on part of his former therapist.
The article states that, following that incident, Soto now approaches counseling by focusing on the supposed connection between social justice and mental health.
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