Starving Deluded Martyrs
An interview with Clinical Psychologist Dr. Jonathan Stea
I’m pleased to welcome Canadian clinical psychologist and author Dr. Jonathan Stea to Traces of Therapy for this interview. We met on X/Twitter and share a passion for science and mental health, as well as a love of the work of cosmologist and science educator, Dr. Carl Sagan. However, our topic today is his experience of a multi-year obsession expressed by a Deluded Martyr or two.
Paul: Hi, Jonathan. Thanks so much to agreeing to fit this into your busy schedule. Can you share a bit about your background and what drew you to your current work or activism?
Clinically, for about a decade, I’ve been working full-time on a fantastic interdisciplinary team in a hospital setting composed of other psychologists, psychiatrists, addiction medicine physicians, nurses, nurse-practitioners, social workers, and occupational therapists. We specialize in helping people who experience severe and complex concurrent addiction and psychiatric disorders, as well as other health conditions. My day-to-day work involves providing assessment, treatment, and consultation services. It means I provide one-on-one psychotherapy, group therapy, and case management. I’m also involved in regular and ongoing supervision of students, residents, and staff. Academically, at the University of Calgary, I’m an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Psychology.
On top of those professional activities, I’ve also taken to patient advocacy work via science communication, which I consider to be a professional and ethical duty. The promotion and practice of evidence-based care is baked into our codes of ethics, and this involves correcting mental health misinformation that could harm the public. In this vein, I recently published a book called MIND THE SCIENCE, which is intended for a wide and general audience, and to be a self-defence shield to help protect against the onslaught of bogus mental health treatments and pseudoscientific claims that flood our environment, particularly as they derive from the wellness industry and anti-psychiatry movement.
Paul: I have my copy! What initially motivated you to engage with the online spaces or communities where the harassment occurred?
Having seen so many of my patients hurt by the pseudoscience circulating in popular culture, social media, health care systems, and the wellness industry, I’ve been on a mission to expose its harm and help protect the public from mental health misinformation. Everyone, including patients, deserves better than the harm that is associated with pseudoscientific grift.
Paul: When did you first start noticing online hostility directed at you? How did it initially manifest?
I first noticed the hostility in response to debunking the outlandish claims I would witness on a daily basis on social media, which come from a few non-mutually exclusive sources. The anti-vaccine movement and the modern anti-psychiatry movement are pseudoscientific assaults on public health. Additionally, the wellness and alternative medicine industries financially exploit people’s health and emotional vulnerabilities by commodifying pseudoscientific treatments. The result is that we see absurd claims such as denying the existence of germs and mental illness, but promoting the existence of human energy fields, homeopathic water memory, and telekinetic spoon bending. We see dangerous claims that vaccines cause autism and psychiatric medications are more harmful than helpful, and that the solution is to follow a fad diet or buy unsupported supplements to address a faux “root cause.”
Paul: What do you think motivated the trolls to target you?
There are many possible interacting factors that can account for why I’m targeted. I suspect that for my most ardent cyberstalkers and harassers, the primary drivers are marriage to pseudoscientific health ideology, coupled with dark tetrad personality traits, including narcissism. People don’t like when their world-views are poked and prodded. Whereas challenging one’s beliefs can be a liberating opportunity for growth for some people—which is aligned with the scientific spirit—it can also result in lashing out, particularly among those who exhibit such personality traits.
Paul: Indeed! My own experience as a science and vaccination advocate on X/Twitter is the same. Can you describe the nature of the harassment you experienced and how did it evolve over time?
For promoting evidence-based patient care and public health, I’ve been receiving regular, ongoing harassment and cyberstalking for years. I wrote about it here and here. I’ve received death threats, dealt with frivolous complaints, and I’m constantly lied about and libelled. I’ve been called every defamatory name in the book, including “the face of evil.” Even my mother has been attacked and dragged into the harassment campaigns, whereby some have taunted her with emoticon “waves” and inappropriate comments such as, “How ya doin’ mom?” Other times, my photos have been downloaded and played with using Photoshop in an attempt to insult and mock me. For example, one time a picture of my face was pasted on to a sperm yelling “Untrue! Pseudoscience!” And incidentally, I use that image as a slide in my presentations to educate about the nature of harassment in the context of science communication. Everyone has a hearty laugh.
Paul: Targetting our families is so outrageous! Were there any notable patterns or tactics used by the trolls that stood out to you?
I noticed that the harassment from a handful of people has escalated over the years as my patient advocacy has flourished. The early days of such harassment involved calls to retract my published articles on alternative medicine and bizarre covert forms of harassment such as quoting me verbatim, as well as the words of my supporters. The frequency and intensity of the harassment escalated over the years to more explicit defamation, dog piles, and collecting and posting my content with a view toward incitement of harassment as if I were their human stamp collection.
Paul: After reading about the Masked Torturer and Deluded Martyr trolls, do you feel these profiles fit your experience? What might be missing?
I’m very grateful to you for writing your piece because I believe it can help people understand the nature of harassment in a nuanced way and help others who experience harassment not feel so alone. I’ve indeed encountered harassment that feels consistent with both of the profiles you’ve described. I think your “Deluded Martyr” profile does well at capturing the grandiosity and fantasy components of narcissism that I suspect drive much of the harassment toward my efforts.
Paul: Were friends, family, or colleagues supportive during the harassment?
I’m fortunate to have strong social support and coping skills, which allow me to manage harassment effectively. Many people are chased off social media due to these attacks and no one should blame them. Science communication isn’t for everyone and there’s no reason to continue if it’s negatively impacting someone’s mental health. Emotion regulation skills and reaching out for support are paramount if one decides to engage in science communication in the face of harassment.
Paul: Yeah, I think my psychotherapy training has helped a lot in this arena too. What advice would you give to someone else going through a similar experience with harassment?
For people who are new to science communication, it’s important to remember that trolling, harassment, and personal attacks can sometimes come with the territory. And that you’re not alone. This article in Nature provides a glimmer into its prevalence on social media.
It’s important to never take insults personally, as it reflects the headspace of the people lobbing the attacks, which are often directed not at you per se, but rather a distorted view and set of ideas about who they think you are.
Paul: Looking back, do you feel you’ve grown or changed from the experience of dealing with the harassment?
Personally, my experience of harassment has only strengthened my resolve to continue my patient advocacy work. I feel grateful to receive overwhelming and heart-warming messages of support voicing that my efforts have made meaningful differences toward improving people’s lives and health outcomes. And that’s everything. I find that extremely rewarding—and it’s satisfying to know that ultimately, the abuse from my harassers doesn’t matter.
It's also helpful to remember that those who engage in harassment have their own problems to work through and heal from in order to figure out what drives their behaviour. And that’s their responsibility, not ours.
Paul: Well said. Thanks for all this, Jonathan. I’ve learned a lot from hearing your story and I’m sure others will too.