The issues at stake—our health, our rights, how we educate our kids—demand a lot from us. Yet, in today’s attention economy, leaders don’t always earn influence through integrity and truth. Instead, they master the art of capturing emotions, feeding fears, and speaking to lived experiences, often amplifying misinformation rather than challenging it.

When leaders step into the fight against misinformation, they take on enormous risks and the consequences are very real, from open hostility to verbal abuse to death threats.

Staying engaged in these difficult conversations requires more than just knowledge; it demands emotional regulation, capacity for conflict, and self-awareness. 

This is where unprocessed relational trauma can shape how a leader navigates conflict. But leaders who work through these wounds develop the ability to hold tension without collapsing or attacking. 

Developing this capacity for conflict is critical today. Because in an era when science is under siege, how we engage in conflict matters just as much as the facts themselves.

In the first of two conversations with leaders who model how to engage with critics without feeding the outrage machine, today’s guest shares his approach to tackling conflict and misinformation in science and health spaces, one where we engage with rigor and compassion without bending to the pressures of false equivalence. He understands that courage isn’t about shouting the loudest; it’s about staying grounded in your values, standing firm in the truth, and being authentic and creative in capturing much-coveted attention. 

Dr. Jonathan N. Stea is a full-time practicing clinical psychologist and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary. He’s a two-time winner of the University of Calgary’s Award for Excellence in Clinical Supervision and co-editor of the book Investigating Clinical Psychology: Pseudoscience, Fringe Science, and Controversies. Dr. Stea has published extensively, with regular contributions to Scientific American and Psychology Today, among other outlets, and has appeared on numerous mainstream television and radio shows, as well as podcasts. 

His book, Mind the Science: Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry, aims to educate and embolden those who wish to make informed decisions about their mental health, to improve science and mental health literacy, and to pull back the curtain on the devastating consequences of allowing pseudoscience promoters to target the vulnerable within our society. 

 

 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How witnessing his mother’s health struggles as a child shaped both Jonathan’s career trajectory and his compassion for those who seek alternative treatments
• Why testimonials and other anecdotal evidence are actually warning signs of pseudoscience
• How the placebo effect impacts our perception of the effectiveness of alternative cures
• How not all grifters have malicious intent, though they can cause significant harm
• Breaking down common factors that make us susceptible to misinformation
• How Jonathan has learned to cope with trolls and challenge pseudoscience with humor

 

Learn more about Dr. Jonathan Stea:

• Website
• X: @jonathanstea
• Facebook: @drjonathanstea
• Instagram: @dr_jonathan_stea
• Threads: @dr_jonathan_stea
• Mind the Science Newsletter
• Mind the Science: Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry

 

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• The Unburdened Leader on Substack
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

 

Resources:

• Judith Lewis Herman
• The Developing Mind How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, Daniel J. Siegel 
• The Certainty Illusion, Timothy Caulfield
• Kyuss – Demon Cleaner
• Apple Cider Vinegar
• Spaceballs

 

Transcript:

Rebecca Ching:  Hello, Unburdened Leader listeners! I’m kicking off a two-part series on what it takes to be a leader in the age of misinformation and what we can learn from those on the front lines of health and science communication. So in this first of two conversations with leaders who model how to engage with critics without feeding the outrage machine, and my guest today models a different approach to tackling conflict and misinformation in the science and health spaces, one where we engage with rigor and compassion without bending to the pressures of false equivalents. He understands that courage isn’t about shouting the loudest, it’s about staying grounded in your values, standing firm in the truth, and being authentic and creative in capturing much-coveted attention. You’ll learn how the power of humor can also offer perspective and education while serving as salve for many, like me, who are grappling with a daunting fight.

All right, before we get into the show, I just want to encourage you all if you haven’t subscribed or left a rating or a review for this show, I would be honored if you did so. And if you shared this episode with someone who you think would benefit from it, I’d be so grateful. And make sure you check out my new Substack The Unburdened Leader. All right, now onto the show!

[Inspirational Intro Music]

Dr. Jonathan Stea: The vast majority of who I would term grifters aren’t malicious and they’re not actually out to harm people. I think that the vast majority of them are probably very caring people that want to make a living and they also want to help people. The problem is that that intention is great, but it’s also dangerous if we’re not valuing things like scientific expertise and evidence-based treatments, and the reason for that is because using evidence and science is in the best interest of our patients. So even though someone may be well intentioned, it can result in negative consequences, and that’s not the most helpful path to patient care. 

[Inspirational Intro Music]

2:24

Rebecca Ching: I’m Rebecca Ching, and you’re listening to The Unburdened Leader, the show that goes deep with humans who navigate life’s challenges and lead in their own ways. Our goal is to learn how they address the burdens they carry, how they learn from them and become better and more impactful leaders of themselves and others.

“Fight for the things that you care about but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” – Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

She’s amazing. I miss her. And this quote from RBG has never felt more urgent. The issues at stake (our health, our rights, how we educate our kids, our democracy) demand a lot from us. Yet in today’s attention economy, leaders don’t always earn influence through integrity and truth. Instead, they master the art of capturing emotions, feeding fears, and speaking to lived experiences but often amplifying misinformation rather than challenging it. We see this divide play out real time, especially in our media consumption., and the most recent election here in The United States reinforced how fractured our information sources have become with minimal overlap between what different groups hear, read, and watch. Entire ecosystems now exist where opinions, often rooted in falsehoods and confabulations, become immovable facts protected from scrutiny and accountability.

4:08

So when leaders step into the fight against misinformation, they take on enormous risks, especially when that misinformation endangers lives. Many avoid conflict out of fear, not just because of disagreement but because of harassment and risk of death threats and public shaming. The bullying from the playgrounds now infiltrates our workplaces, communities, and online spaces, following us 24/7 through our phones, and the consequences are real. Doctors and nurses face hostility in their own clinics. Teachers endure verbal abuse from parents. Scientists receive death threats for simply sharing peer-reviewed research.

Now, just this past week in my own doctor’s appointments, I heard medical professionals stretched beyond exhaustion, not from their caseloads but from their relentless need to defend basic scientific truths. And many of them shared with me that they’re parents too, battling the same misinformation at home that they fight in their professional lives. You know, leaders must make a crucial distinction in the spaces they lead. Welcoming diverse perspectives is not the same as legitimizing dangerous falsehoods. Not every debate is a “both sides” argument. Historian Timothy Snyder warns post-truth is pre-fascism. Because when misinformation stands unchallenged as just another viewpoint, we erode the very foundation of informed decision making.

But staying engaged in these difficult conversations requires more than just knowledge. It demands emotional regulation, capacity for conflict, and self-awareness. Leaders who’ve done their inner work to stay grounded can challenge harmful ideas without dehumanizing those who hold them. That’s a mark of deep self-leadership: remaining engaged, honoring humanity, and holding the line of truth without armoring up or shutting down. And this is where unprocessed relational trauma can shape how a leader navigates conflict.

6:25

Research shows that leaders with a history of relational trauma often struggle with either avoidance (like tapping out) or hyper-reactivity (lashing out). According to trauma researchers like Dr. Judith Herman and Dr. Dan Siegel, early experiences of betrayal, neglect, or emotional unpredictability can make conflict feel like a threat to safety rather than an opportunity for meaningful engagement. However, leaders who have worked through these wounds develop a capacity to hold tension without collapsing or attacking. I love this quote from Dan Siegel. He said: “Integration, the linking of differentiated parts is at the heart of well-being. A leader who integrates their emotions, memories, and experiences can navigate challenges with flexibility, resilience, and clarity rather than becoming stuck in rigid or chaotic responses.”

When we advocate for the truth, we must integrate our own emotional responses so we can engage productively even in hostile environments, and this ability prevents burnout and allows us to stay in the fight for the long haul, because goodness knows, we need to. And this capacity for conflict is critical today. I’m thinking particularly for leaders in public health and science, they end up teaching themselves how to navigate public communication while also developing practices that keep their families safe.

8:02

I mean, this is where we’re at, right? We have to figure out how to keep up with the fast pace of information while protecting their lives from attacks. And anti-science rhetoric doesn’t just live online. It’s spilling into hospitals, schools, public policy, shaping real-world consequences. Staying in these conversations takes courage. And my guest today knows that cost firsthand. He dedicates his work to making scientific literacy accessible to the public while pushing back against the dangerous influence of the wellness industry, but he does this with humor, clarity, and a commitment to challenging ideas and not attacking people. Because in an era when science is under siege, how we engage in conflict matters just as much as the facts themselves.

Now, Dr. Jonathan Stea is a full-time practicing clinical psychologist and an adjunct assistant professor at The Department of Psychology at The University of Calgary, and he’s also the author of Mind the Science: Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry. And y’all, run, don’t walk to get this book. I can’t stop talking about it. It is full of heart, compassion, is beautifully written and has a lot of solid facts. And I didn’t agree with 100% of everything that Jonathan talks about, but that’s not the point! It is such a powerful book, and I’m so excited it’s a resource. So let me go back to Jonathan.

Clinically, he specializes in the assessment and treatment of co-occurring addictions and mental disorders. He’s a two-time winner of The University of Calgary’s Award for Excellence in Clinical Supervision. I’m so glad he’s doing supervision with the next generation of therapists. It’s awesome! And he’s a co-editor of the book Investigating Clinical Psychology: Pseudoscience, Fringe Science, and Controversies. So this work is integrated into all that he does.

10:12

And he has been published extensively, he’s appeared on numerous mainstream media and TV outlets as well as podcasts, and he was the 2022 recipient of the John G. Paterson Award from The Psychological Association of Alberta, which is awesome! It’s an annual award presented for the exceptional contribution to portraying psychological knowledge to the public.

Listen for Jonathan’s personal experience with the wellness industry as a family member sought relief from alternative treatments and how that experience shaped his career path and his passion for science education. Pay attention to Jonathan’s science for misinformation and pseudoscience in the wellness industry. And notice when we spoke about Jonathan’s approach to tackling misinformation through humor and his commitment to be hard on ideas of those he disagrees with but not their humanity, even when that’s rarely reciprocated. All right, now let’s get into it with this latest Unburdened Leader podcast with Dr. Jonathan Stea.

Jonathan, welcome to The Unburdened Leader podcast!

Dr. Jonathan Stea: It’s my absolute pleasure, Rebecca. Thanks so much for having me!

Rebecca Ching: I have been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. I know you and I have been messaging because I’ve been reading your book, and I keep having these out-loud exclamations, and my husband’s like, “What? What?” And I’m like, “No, it’s good! It’s good,” as I’m reading your book. And speaking of your book titled Minding the Science: Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry, you often take on those who push and pedal approaches to mental health that harm, but you know, you write about this in your book that you have personal experience with the wellness industry.

12:03

And before we dig into the beauty of what you do to push back on a lot that’s out there, take me back to the time when your family explored different approaches to healing when conventional treatments did not work. 

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Yeah, I appreciate you saying that, Rebecca. You know, I did discuss that in my book and wanted to inject some humanity into it because it was largely to make the point that everyone falls for misinformation, everyone turns to alternative medicine because why wouldn’t we? We all know people, either ourselves or our family or our friends who have been touched with health conditions or various ailments, and desperation can be very intoxicating, and who wouldn’t want to try everything and anything they can. So I really resonate with that, and as you pointed out, I have experienced that firsthand while growing up as a kid.

I’m an only child, and so, just growing up with my mom and my dad in my home, my earliest memories are just kind of riddled with health problems, with respect to my mother. She’s had constant, constant kind of health problems. And then it was around 11 years old or so where it really kind of came to a head where we now know she was experiencing something called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, which is basically just a giant umbrella term for a chronic pain condition that has a myriad of symptoms, and it can present in different ways for different people. But the way it kind of showed up with her was, you know, she was just in incredible pain, like wind would brush by her leg and she would be shrieking in pain or if water touched it, her legs would double then kind of triple in size. I’m not exaggerating that because they would leak lymphatic fluid they would get so swollen.

14:02

And so, yeah, we were desperate. We tried everything. We went to conventional medicine. They didn’t really know what it was. We still don’t have a clear, you know, treatment, necessarily, or cure for chronic Complex Regional Pain Syndrome outside of symptom management. But it was tough. I remember my parents even flew to Florida at some point to try to get some experimental treatment. That didn’t work. We tried literally every alternative medicine treatment you can imagine from energy healing to burning incense to chiropractic, literally everything and anything. And, you know, as an 11-year-old kid who was very naive and ignorant to what science is and what medicine was. I was just, you know, very confused. And then as I kind of got older, I was puzzled by that, like how can we send people to the moon? We have such great science, and yet we can’t cure my mother’s health condition.

And so, yeah, I wrote about that in the book just to kind of, again, the main message is not to blame anyone for seeking alternatives.

Rebecca Ching: Right.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Because, like I mentioned, when people are desperate, they’re desperate, and we want to find help. The problem with that, though, is that it can come with some negative consequences, a lot of negative consequences, which I then write out — I delineate later in the book.

Rebecca Ching: In detail, beautifully, I must add. But, you know, staying on this personal note too, I mean, I have to ask too, how did your experiences kind of sitting with your mom impact your own career trajectory? I mean, you’re a PhD in psychology, correct?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Yes.

Rebecca Ching: Yeah, so tell me a little bit. Did that — what drew you into this space?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I think what drew me — with my mother’s experience, it was just the — I don’t know, as a kid I was naive to the idea, like I mentioned, science can send us to the moon, but we can’t figure out people’s health problems. And chronic pain, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is such a complex disorder, and similarly, psychopathology, the nature of psychopathology and mental health disorders are equally complex in lots of different ways.

16:06

We try to conceptualize and understand them from a biopsychosocial model, meaning we try to understand biological contributions, psychological and social contributions to understanding the causes of psychopathology, but we are far from a perfect understanding of it. And so, we don’t have a perfect understanding of the nature of psychopathology, and similarly, we don’t have a perfect way to treat psychopathology.

And so, I think that just intrigued the intellectual side of me kind of growing up and then wanting to help people in those states, kind of you know, empathizing with the direness of it and also trying to look for answers and trying to propel the field forward. So I actually got into — you know, I did a PhD because I was trying to engage in research to try and better understand, for me, it was the nature of addiction, which also kind of — you know, I wouldn’t say my mother completely influenced that trajectory, but she certainly became physiologically dependent on opioids and Benzodiazepine as a result of Complex regional Pain Syndrome.

Rebecca Ching: Right.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: And so, I saw firsthand what that looked like as well. So yeah, it’s really just that complexity that really sparked my interest.

Rebecca Ching: You touched on this a little bit, but maybe you can say more how that earlier time in your life shapes how you approach your clients who feel frustrated with the pace of healing and the pace of change?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Yeah, I mean, as you know, one of the best predictors of outcomes is having a strong therapeutic relationship with people.

Rebecca Ching: Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: So that comes first and foremost, and in order to do that you have to, like I mentioned before, just use your humanity and your curiosities and kind of being present with patience, and that necessarily involves empathizing and coming alongside them and just sort of sharing in that frustration and that journey. And again, that frustration of not knowing how to best treat someone’s, say, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder or their anxiety disorders, and we have good ideas. We have evidence-based treatments that can help. But they don’t help everyone, and they don’t help immediately, and it can be a journey.

18:16

I mean, I work in what’s called a Concurrent Disorders Outpatient Clinic, so we treat people with severe addiction and concurrent mental disorders, and often the people who we are seeing, because we’re a specialty clinic, have been to bed-based treatments are what they’re called, residential treatments where you go and live in, essentially, rehab. They’ve done this maybe three or four times over the course of decades even, and so, it’s not ten sessions and someone’s cured. It really is a journey, and so, part of trying to help people is using that humanity and sharing in that frustration. But also, you know, the other part of what we call evidence-based principles is not just sharing, holding that frustration and then also instilling hope and kind of motivation and trying to troubleshoot, essentially, and help people figure out how can we utilize their strengths and past learnings to mobilize change.

Rebecca Ching: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that because I felt like I wanted to have that as a foundation for our conversation and not as one as just kind of looking down from the mountaintop, poo-pooing other people but just know that your posture, which is, really, I think important.

But I want to talk about — you spend a lot of your time, in your book and definitely online, addressing what you call pseudoscience, what I call pseudoscience, and addressing grifters. And so, let’s define those terms. How do you define pseudoscience and how do you define a grifter or a grift?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Yes. And so, it’s not an easy question to answer.

Rebecca Ching: Nope.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: So I have to unpack it a bit. Because if it were simplistic, you know, we’d have this stuff all figured out.

20:00

Pseudoscience, I mean, this question has been wrestled with by philosophers of science since science kind of became developed. And so, if you look at the history and philosophy of science and literature, they actually call it the demarcation problem, which asks, “Where do we demarcate (or draw that line) between science and pseudoscience?” And the short answer is that there is no clear-cut criterion or categorical way to define that. What’s a more helpful way to understand pseudoscience is that it’s a cluster of warning signs or a constellation of warning signs so that identifying pseudoscience becomes more of a probabilistic endeavor, meaning the more warning signs that we see and that we hear, the more likely it is that we unearth something pseudoscientific. And so, in some ways, we can get extreme pseudosciences, which are more easily identifiable at the extremes. And then there’s a huge gray zone where it gets much more murky, and that has ethical and treatment implications as well.

So pseudoscience, in my book, I basically outline nine of these warning signs that I would love for people to memorize if they can, so to speak, because that’s what’s important to try to identify and protect ourselves from pseudoscientific treatments. So there are a number of those warning signs.

A grifter —

Rebecca Ching: Well, real quick, before we go to grifter —

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Sure.

Rebecca Ching:  — why don’t you name a few. I know you put nine in there, but what would you say are the frequentest of the frequent fliers of the nine that usually come to the surface?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Yeah, it’s hard to pick favorites, but I will.

Rebecca Ching: Okay.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I will. So an important one is called the elevation of anecdotal evidence. So what that means is just basically people using anecdotal evidence to support and promote their pseudoscientific treatment, say. And you can see this in the form of testimonials, say, on websites for particular treatments, which incidentally for psychologists is actually unethical.

22:05

And there are a number of reasons that it’s unethical. One is because it can be inaccurate advertising because that’s the nature of anecdotal evidence is that it’s only an N of 1 (a sample of one), and that’s a pseudoscientific warning sign in part because it’s capitalizing on one of the biggest fallacies that we have, that our brains fall for. It has a Latin term and let me try to get it right. It’s the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which basically means just because something happens first and then an event happens after that they’re somehow causally related. That’s a fallacy. So just because you get up every morning and shower and then the sun rises doesn’t mean that your shower caused the sun to rise, but that’s what anecdotal evidence does. It says just because you had depression and then you underwent a treatment, therefore the treatment caused your depression to feel better. That’s very low-quality evidence of use of scientific support. That’s why we need more rigorous scientific evidence, like randomized controlled trials.

So anyways, that’s one pseudoscientific warning sign is when you see grifters, so to speak, or people promoting treatments, you will see testimonials splattered all over these websites.

Rebecca Ching: Social proof, that’s the marketing term, right? That’s the other side. It’s powerful. “Who said this? Oh, I have that too and they got this.” So it’s gonna be very comforting and it’s very powerful from a sales and marketing perspective, so thank you for that, okay.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: That’s why it works so well. Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: Exactly.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Because it capitalizes on that heuristic. I mean, our brains evolved to kind of believe it. And maybe two more I’ll say, out of the nine.

So one is using sciency-sounding language or jargon. So this kind of takes a degree of science literacy skills to get. But let’s say you go onto a functional medicine clinic website, and you find a treatment called Quantum Neurological Reset Therapy.

Rebecca Ching: Fancy.

24:04

Dr. Jonathan Stea: [Laughs] Fancy. And it purports to work by changing the cellular mechanisms via the gaia frequencies that are purporting to change the metacognition ambulatory vessels in your brain. So what I’ve just said is gobbity goo. It means nothing. It’s complete and utter nonsense. But that’s a pseudoscientific warning sign because, you know, pseudoscience prompters will use language that sounds sciency, and it’s empty and it’s vacuous and it means nothing, but again, it works, and it can seem powerful. They use it to cajole audiences and to dupe audiences.

My friend and professor at The University of Alberta, Timothy Caulfield, he coined the term scienceploitation to capture that kind of warning sign.

Rebecca Ching: Mm.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: So sort of exploitation using science: scienceploitation. So that’s another warning sign.

One more that I’ll say quickly is I think this is probably the most powerful one, at least the one I used in my book to kind of separate those extreme cases of pseudoscience from the gray zone, and I would call it, essentially, claims that are divorced from the broader scientific literature. So I know that’s a mouthful, but what it means is when you hear claims that are completely divorced from the mountains and mountains of scientific evidence that we have, that’s a pseudoscientific warning sign.

So, for example, people who promote energy healing will say that they can manipulate and balance our energy blockages using their hands, without touching us in any kind of way, because we all have these human energy fields around us, and the fields become blocked and the treatment is to unblock them to treat a mental health disorder, say. That’s a claim. That’s a scientific claim, and it’s what’s called scientifically implausible.

26:01

It’s completely implausible. It’s divorced from the broader scientific literature because if it were to be true, everything we know about human anatomy, everything we know about the laws of physics would essentially crumble. I mean, that’s how divorced that law is. We just don’t have human energy fields. They’ve never been identified, and certainly an alternative medicine practitioner can’t manipulate them somehow with their hands to, then, treat a blockage that doesn’t exist to treat your depression. So that’s another kind of huge warning sign.

A similar one is the treatment of homeopathy, which basically says that a remedy is more effective when the active ingredient has been diluted out of existence. So you have an active ingredient but then they shake it up and they dilute it in water to the point that not a single molecule remains in the remedy. So the idea is that water, literally water, somehow remembers the molecule. So again, these don’t make sense, right? These claims are divorced from fundamental principles in pharmacology and, again, physics.

Rebecca Ching: And I can’t help but think, and I want to acknowledge kind of the intersection of the placebo effect along with the relationship and how that can also lead to healing but then give the wrong credit (right?) to the thing. So while the practitioner you’re working with, you may have a lot of trust in. There may be a strong connection. And then really believing in that there’s enough body of evidence around the placebo effect, which is interesting to me, that sometimes the credit goes to the treatment or the homeopathy or whatever, when maybe it’s other influences too. I don’t know if you would agree with that?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I totally agree.

Rebecca Ching: Okay.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: That’s exactly right. So if we want to, say, Steel Man alternative medicine. So Steel Man is presenting an argument in its best light to try to, then, easily tackle it. I’d say alternative medicine treatments can work in so far as they capitalize on placebo effects, which we know are very real.

28:00

And what they also do is they clumsily, I would say clumsily stumble upon evidence-based principles that other psychotherapies do. So like we mentioned, cultivating a therapeutic alliance. An alternative medicine practitioner can do that, and when people feel seen and when people feel heard and they feel validated, that can actually contribute to outcomes. The problem is that the alternative medicine practitioner is likely not claiming that the reason their treatment worked is due to placebo effects and what we call nonspecific therapeutic factors of the therapeutic relationship. They’re saying the treatment works because they unblocked your energy blockages, or the water remembered the active ingredient in their homeopathic remedy.

Rebecca Ching: So let’s shift to grifter. How do you define a grift or a grifter?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I defined it quite broadly in my book. I mean, typically, people will attach some sort of malice to it or some sort of negative connotation that it’s someone that’s intentionally out to con someone, and I think that’s a huge component of it. So a grifter is a charlatan or a fraud or someone that’s selling you snake oil, and they’re essentially selling you pseudoscience or something that doesn’t work. I intentionally broadened the definition a bit because I think that the vast majority of who I would term grifters aren’t malicious and they’re not actually out to harm people. I think that the vast majority of them are probably very caring people that want to make a living and they also want to help people. The problem is that that intention is great, but it’s also dangerous if we’re not valuing things like scientific expertise and evidence-based treatments. And it’s not just me saying that. I mean, there is a whole philosophy baked into our codes of ethics for bonafide health professions, whether it’s physicians, psychologists, social workers, nurses, those treatments in those fields baked into their ethics is a philosophy that we need to practice from an evidence-based perspective.

30:09

And the reason for that is because using evidence and science is in the best interest of our patients. So even though someone may be well intentioned, it can result in negative consequences, and that’s not the most helpful path to patient care.

Rebecca Ching: What role do you see lived experience play into not just, you know, all kinds of treatment, mental health, physical health — because there is a big movement, at least here in The States. You’re up in Canada. Just to be clear, not our 51st state. We had that conversation before we started recording.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Thank you.

Rebecca Ching: I couldn’t resist. I think there’s something about lived experience where folks sometimes feel not heard when folks that carry the credentials that you and I have, like, “Well, but you’re not right.” And I’ve been really just trying to — what’s the bridge? I think working on a bridge around acknowledging lived experience, because a lot of times, before something becomes evidence-based, right, there’s that liminal space of things too and wanting to give witness to that too. I’d love your thoughts on that.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Well, yeah, I mean, lived experience absolutely matters. I mean, that’s primarily what we’re dealing with in the context of a therapeutic relationship, and when people come to the clinic. And so, that’s essentially the foundation of a case formulation when we’re trying to figure out what is causing someone’s ailments or their problems or why they’re coming. Mental health professionals will develop what we call a case formulation where we try to figure out what’s the causes of the difficulties, again, from a biological, psychological and social perspective, and then trying to figure out how best to help them.

And, you know, even like we mentioned before, we have gaps in our scientific knowledge, and we have gaps in our treatments, and even our best evidence-based treatments won’t help everyone. And so, that’s an important reality.

32:01

And in part because, you know, the highest-quality evidence that we use, say randomized controlled trials, they essentially deal in averages, and that’s one of the limitations of randomized controlled trials or RCTs. So an RCT can tell us who is most likely to benefit from a particular treatment on average, but it won’t tell you who’s gonna benefit from the patient sitting in your office. You won’t be able to tell from an RCT if that will work or not, and that’s where lived experience comes in.

The clinical world and clinical realities are very messy compared to what happens in the lab, and this highlights one of the big problems in psychotherapy research, which we’ve been wrestling with for decades, which is the efficacy versus effectiveness problems. So efficacy is how well a treatment works when it’s clean and clear-cut boundaries in a lab versus effectiveness is how well does it work in the real-world setting out there, you know, in your addiction treatment program where you have someone that’s also homeless and they have low socioeconomic status that just got a divorce. There are a million variables that can kind of come into play, versus the treatment was tested on maybe undergraduate students who might not even have a particular psychopathology.

Rebecca Ching: Gosh, I could say so much more about this, but I’d love your thoughts, from your lens, in the work you do, and maybe even online too. What are the top ways you see pseudoscience the most harmful?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Oh, the current culture is really making this an easy answer, unfortunately. I mean, pseudoscience has always been a problem and misinformation has as well. I don’t want to get too much into it, but what we’re seeing in our culture now is terrifying. I think what we’re seeing is anti-science movements becoming mainstream because they’re becoming politicized. We’re especially seeing this in the US. We’re seeing the rise of the anti-vaccine movement becoming mainstream, and with that comes the anti-psychiatry movement, which I write about in my book, because anti-science movements just tend to cluster together.

34:11

Pseudosciences and conspiracy theories kind of come together, and that’s a very, very harmful thing when we get leaders in our government and leaders in healthcare systems essentially undermining mountains and mountains of overwhelming evidence against things like, I’ll just say, RFK Jr. saying things like, “Vaccines cause autism,” which is absolutely not true. We have an overwhelming amount of evidence to say that it doesn’t, but he is stoking fear and distrust in our population. That’s gonna undermine the people’s trust in public health. They’re less likely to get vaccinated, and people are going to suffer and die as a result, and that’s terrifying. And the same thing happens in the anti-psychiatry movement. When you get people stoking fears about whether mental illness is even real, whether psychiatric medications are more harmful than helpful, when those ideas become mainstream, then it’s going to serve the function of deterring treatment seeking and ultimately compromising patient care and public health.

Rebecca Ching: I think it feels really personal for me too because not only will this whole thing around vaccines causing autism, will it cause death. As we’re interviewing this, there’s an outbreak of measles in Texas right now that every public health professional I respect is at, like, five-alarm fire, “This is scary.” But it also makes a whole segment of our population seen as preventable, like they’re wrong, like they shouldn’t be here. And I say this as a parent of a kid on the spectrum. Anyone with any kind of different issues, it is terrifying on even how we see each other and how we see our kids, how we see people with differences. It’s going to not only impact our physical health but how we relate and support, love, and care for each other too.

36:12

I think sometimes, too, those of us with all the letters by our names, we can almost push people towards pseudoscience and the well-meaning grifters out there and the not-well-meaning ones by not listening, by thinking we know better than them. You touched on this. The listening-to-live experience is the foundation of developing any kind of case conceptualization of a shared agreement on what we’re doing, but there are many folks out there that don’t, in our fields of helping profession. And so, I want to acknowledge that and it’s also a call in for those in our field too. So just wanted to name that before I go into a quote that you wrote.

Because my voice is the way it is, why don’t you — it’s question number three.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I wrote: “We are at a point in human history where we have access to the best-available information at our fingertips, and yet it doesn’t lead to better-informed health decisions because that information is drowned out by a rival proliferation of emotionally-charged fake science news, conspiracies, alternative facts, and social media echo chambers.”

Rebecca Ching: I’m curious. What are some of the reasons you hear from your patients on why they ignore those signs that you talked about? You mentioned three of the nine. Why are they ignoring these warning signs?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: This is just — there’s an entire literature devoted to this, and it’s an emerging psychology. It’s very complex to answer the question, “Why do people fall for health misinformation?” It’s a bit different and it’s related to why people turn to alternative medicine. So, you know, we talked a bit about why people turn to alternative medicine, which is the healthcare system fails them at times, they want to be seen more holistically, they want to avoid side effects of medication, etcetera. I mean, there’s a lot of mistrust in institutions. Those are kind of valid ideas. But then there’s also a psychology just for why all of us are susceptible to misinformation.

Rebecca Ching: Right.

38:24

Dr. Jonathan Stea: And the best way to understand this is that it’s a multifactorial approach, meaning there are many different factors that come together, and they interact in kind of different ways.

And so, to help me understand it, I first think of it at the individual level. There are reasons why each of us at the individual level are susceptible to it. None of these in isolation tell us that a person will fall for it. It’s the interaction of all these factors. So at the cognitive level, people, we have different kinds of thinking styles. So, for example, an intuitive thinking style versus a more analytical thinking style. We know from research that when people rely more on that gut-level, effortless, intuitive thinking style to process claims and information, that just makes people more likely to fall for misinformation. So instead when people can pause, step back, reflect, take time, and do a bit of thinking and kind of critical thinking and research on a topic, they’re just less likely to fall for misinformation. So that’s just happening at the cognitive level.

Then we have the personality level. You know, there are personality factors that make people more or less susceptible to falling for misinformation. One is called openness to experience. Someone who scores high on openness to experience is very open to intellectual ideas, kind of more out-there ideas. They just kind of like to play with ideas mentally. That’s a kind of a personality trait. It’s a wonderful thing. Each personality trait has pros and cons. One of the cons is that it can lead people to be more likely to fall for misinformation, not in and of itself. Again, it needs to interact with these other ideas, with these other factors.

There’s also a variable called conspiracy mentality. For whatever reason some people are just more likely to fall for conspiracy theories. Again, this is probably linked to our openness to experience personality trait.

There’s another one, and this is sometimes contentious for people to hear, but it’s essentially lack of intellectual humility, or the converse of that is narcissism. People that score higher on narcissism are more likely to buy into conspiracies. Again, not the be all, end all.

40:35

So those are some of the individual-level factors that are happening. Then we have a lot of social factors that are happening. So if you’re online, which we probably all are, we’re all targeted by misinformation just by virtue of being on social media, by virtue of these algorithms, which amplify sexy, emotion-laden headlines and information because that’s the stuff that goes viral. We have research on that, that shows that misinformation is more likely to spread further faster and deeper than the truth. We have empirical support for that in social networks that it literally goes further. So that’s just happening at kind of the algorithm level.

Then we actually have bad actors who prey upon our brain’s wiring for cognitive biases. So you get your Instagram influencer, with hundreds of thousands of followers, who is pitching and telling you that their treatments work. You’re getting individual influencers, and then you’re getting broader organizations. Kind of back to RFK Jr. and his Children’s Health Defense, which is a well-funded, essentially, anti-vaccine vehicle that exists on social media, and they disguise themselves as some sort of legitimate enterprise when they’re not. They just consistently push pseudoscientific propaganda.

42:02

And so, all of this is happening at once, and so, it’s no wonder that people are so vulnerable to falling for misinformation when you add all of these different layers.

[Inspirational Music]

Rebecca Ching: Leading is hard. Leading is also often controversial as you navigate staying aligned to your values, your mission, your boundaries, and yeah, the truth. Navigating the inevitable controversy (and there are, like, so many to pick from these days) can challenge your confidence and clarity and calm. I know you don’t mind making the hard decisions, but sometimes the stakes seem higher and can bring up echoes of old doubts and insecurities during times when you need to feel rock solid on your plan and action.

Finding a coach who gets the nuances of your business and leading in our complex and polarized world can help you identify the blocks that keep you playing it safe and small. Leading today is not a fancy title or fluffy bragging rights. It’s brave and bold work to stay the course when the future is so unknown and the doubts and pains from the past keep showing up to shake things up. Internal emotional practices and systemic strategies are needed to keep the protector of cynicism at bay and foster a hope that is actionable and aligned.

So when the stakes are high and you don’t want to lose focus, when you want to navigate inevitable conflict between your ears and with those you lead, when time is of the essence and you want to make hard decisions with confidence and clarity, then Unburdened Leader Coaching is for you and where you deepen the capacity to tolerate the vulnerability of change, innovation, and doing things differently than we were taught. To start your Unburdened Leader Coaching process with me go to www.rebeccaching.com and book a free connection call. I can’t wait to hear from you!

[Inspirational Music]

44:11

Rebecca Ching: I want to jump into a little bit about your approach to tackling this. You know, I’ve got Dr. Jessica Steier coming on the show soon, and she’s very much like, “Here are your concerns, and here are my ways of responding to that.” And you do that. But sometimes you just kind of antagonize, playfully, and use a lot of humor in your approach to particularly those that are the bad actors, those that are malicious. I’m curious. When did you realize that this would be your approach to calling out those in this space?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Thank you for saying that. Yeah, and it can be fun at times. And for me, it was just sort of necessary because I’ve written a lot in the past about the very real dangers. And, you know, not to trivialize this, but science communicators — I’ve been doing this for about five years — face a lot of harassment. Again, nature published a journal article or survey on this recently that said, “During the COVID-19 pandemic, science communicators were having death threats against them, frivolous complaints to the regulatory bodies, constant trolling, constant personal attacks.” And this is new territory for science communicators. And so, you know, doctors and physicians and health professionals and scientists aren’t used to being slammed with literally hundreds of messages a day, if you have a big platform, of just abusive messages. And so, it’s hard to navigate that.

And so, for a lot of people, they’ve actually shied away, and they’ve had to take breaks, or they just quit because it wasn’t worth doing. And so, I wrote about that several years ago, about how do we manage harassment and how do we manage trolling because it’s sort of a unique — we weren’t trained to do that, and I still think that’s a gap in science communication literature.

46:05

For me, just kind of it evolved as a coping strategy, to be quite honest. Trying to not personalize the trolling and harassment that happens, because we can’t personalize it. I often tell that to people when they reach out to me asking for help and how to manage it. I say that the person who’s attacking you, they’re not attacking you personally. They’re attacking an ideal or an idealized version of who they think you are. They’re attacking an idea of who they think they are, which is also distorted. And so, it has nothing really to do with you because they don’t know who you are. And so, I think when people are able to detach themselves from that, that makes it a bit more palatable or easier to go on.

In terms of using the humor though, you know, we have some research that says, too, there are different ways to debunk misinformation. There’s prebunking. There’s debunking. And then, you know, the use of humor can actually be helpful as well. Again, this is sort of trying to game the algorithms to our advantage, so to speak, because if it actually gets attention, it can be mildly entertaining for people to throw in scientific jokes or kind of spin on pieces of information that we want to amplify, and I’ve done that. In terms of when it comes to trolling and harassment, I mean, it’s just sort of another way to kind of try to educate the public, because I try to make it educational and try to have it mildly entertaining, and it’s a great coping strategy for me.

Rebecca Ching: So for you it actually doesn’t drain you. It helps. It’s like an outlet because I’m laughing out loud, you know? But some of the stuff that people have said to you or about you or calling to happen to you, I’m like maybe it’s just how I’m wired, my personality, my temperament, right, is like, “Oh, my gosh! Is he safe? Is he gonna be okay?” And you have some zinger that you kind of come back with. And I think, you know, so much of our training is to starve the attention, don’t take them on.

48:03

But I think you’re touching on something here, and I didn’t know there was literature around this, but you’re making it entertaining. It’s kind of some self-preservation coping for you.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Can I add, too —

Rebecca Ching: Yeah, please!

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I would also say I ‘m very careful, too, to not attack the person. I attack ideas in the humor.

Rebecca Ching: Thank you for that. No, I think that’s essential, and I think they’re personally going after how you wear your hair or your training or just your existence as a human being. It’s vile. But you always come back at the idea, and you really do it brilliantly. I think there’s a point in time, though, we need people to stand up to bullies because we’re often — I was looking in the research around bullying in workplaces, and it only draws on most of it in the K through 12 system in The States, and it’s different. Even though emotionally a lot of folks may be stunted in middle school in grown-up bodies, psychologically there, I do think we need some new tactics on how, so we don’t end up just being bystanders.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I so appreciate you saying that because that’s also what we help our patients with, right?

Rebecca Ching: Yes!

Dr. Jonathan Stea: It’s basically assertive communication. It’s boundaries. It’s finding a voice and not being walked over in a way that’s sort of diplomatic and trying to be helpful but not passively beaten down, because when that happens to us, yeah, that’s not a good thing, psychologically. So I do try to model that kind of idea. To me, that’s a coping skill.

Rebecca Ching: I’m curious too — maybe this is anecdotal. I’m sure it is. But how do you see your approach making an impact beyond entertainment?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: With the humor?

Rebecca Ching: Yes, the humor and the playful antagonizing of ideas, not people.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Yeah, I’m hoping that it just kind of gets eyes — you know, it sort of attracts people to the information that I’m talking about.

50:04

Often, I do my best to try to make it some sort of a — have an educational kernel in there that speaks to the nature of scientific processes or anything, anything that’s kind of related to debunking this information. So I think that it’s helpful in so far as it gets eyes on it.

Rebecca Ching: Okay, so what would you want leaders of all kinds, anyone with influence in their circle, you know, their circle of influence, what can they do in their part, not as scientists but to help rebuild trust in science where unhealthy skepticism — I appreciate skepticism but maybe cynicism and misinformation has taken root?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: It’s kind of like the theme of what we’ve been talking about. It’s trying to, number one, the parallel process here is this is what makes us healthy, right? Living with integrity, living according to our values, living compassionately, and leading with that, I think that’s sort of the best approach to science communication as well.

Rebecca Ching: You touched on ethics. You and I have licenses. We have laws and ethics, and it’s a big deal, and at least in my training, they almost kind of scare you to a fault. I think there’s some old stuff there where sometimes it scares people to be creative and innovative within those bounds. But where do ethics play a role for those not governed by a licensing board or laws because so much stuff that’s being sold, you know, here in The States, and there are already a lot of changes happening, but things that aren’t — so many supplements that we can buy aren’t tested by the FDA and they have disclaimer. What’s the rule of ethics, and for those who don’t have a governing board of ethics, what can we look to ethics as they’re making decisions about where to invest their time, their energy, their healthcare, and their trust?

52:00

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I think in the Wild West of healthcare, and especially mental health care, you know, it really is caveat emptor, “buyer beware,” and that was one of the biggest reasons I wrote the book in the first place is because I don’t know that ethics exists in a lot of that realm. And so, I was trying to, with my book, teach people the language of pseudoscience and the language of pseudoscientific grifts so that they know what to avoid and what to seek and trying to have people actually seek out people, bonafide health professionals with codes of ethics and legal standards of practice because when things go awry for a patient in a world where there is no licensing or accountability, there’s no recourse for that patient other than maybe filing a civil lawsuit, and that’s very dangerous.

There’s another parallel, again, kind of process that I’ll speak to here, though, which is equally scary to me, if not more, which is the idea that we can even get bonafide pseudoscientific fields and grifters become legitimized and codified.

So an easy example is, in Ontario, the practice — because I mentioned homeopathy — the practice of homeopathy is licensed. It’s the only province in Canada where you have a regulatory body. It’s a legally-protected title to call yourself a homeopath. So in Alberta where I am, I can say I’m a homeopath because it’s not legally protected. In Ontario, it’s licensed, so you can’t. And so, that brings up this ethical question, which is I don’t know what’s worse is if you have a grifter with no license and no accountability whatsoever or a grifter with a license and feigned accountability because there’s supposedly a regulatory body that’s out there to protect the public. But you can’t protect the public with a bonafide pseudoscientific field like homeopathy that is now codified into law.

54:00

So that’s a scary thing for people to navigate, because how is a consumer or a patient supposed to know that a homeopath is a pseudoscientific grifter, so to speak, if they’re licensed in Ontario?

Rebecca Ching: I remember reading that in your book and having to put the book down for a moment and just sigh, for sure. Well, I appreciate that. I’m curious, too, because this is a leadership podcast. How do you define leadership and how has that definition evolved from what you were taught about leadership growing up?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Well, that’s a nice, interesting question. So I’m not a leadership expert, so I’ll give my —

Rebecca Ching: But you’re a leader in your field! You’re a leader in your field, so I would say that.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. To me, what is leadership to me?

Rebecca Ching: Yes.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: To me, it would mean kind of like I mentioned before, leading with values, so living according to my values, using a compassionate approach, leading with my values, and leading with integrity, and having the, I guess, courage, because it takes a degree of courage to step up and then to use my interpersonal wherewithal and just sort of skills to rally people around those values and trying to get people to buy into the idea that whatever I’m fighting for is worthwhile.

Rebecca Ching: And how is that different from what you saw as a leader growing up?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I’m not sure. I think growing up maybe I was a naive kid, but I just thought leaders are just put in a position of power and maybe they’re kind of born that way, and maybe what I’ve learned over time is that these things are kind of skills to be practiced and to try to — leadership skills require practice. They require perseverance that we all have the complexity of humanity to deal with. And so, we can all feel like we have imposter syndrome, that we’re not leaders, and then we need to constantly remind ourselves of what those values are.

56:04

We have temptations to lead astray, and so, we need to come back and make sure that we’re still aligned with our values. So I think maybe what’s changed is the complexity of what it involves.

Rebecca Ching: Ah, and complexity is almost an understatement, for sure. I know, I felt like that as a kid too. “They were put there, and they were born that way.” There was just kind of this thing they innately had versus something that we can all grow into, and we can all live our values and speak up.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I think there’s an irony in that too, though, because now —

Rebecca Ching: [Laughs] Yeah.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I mean, there’s a whole dark side, too, right, because people are being put there (and we don’t have to name names – we kind of did already) that I think are incredibly charismatic, that do have the intrapersonal skills to get people rallied. And I think, dangerously, they do have the passion to fight for what they believe in, but it’s predicated on just falsities and not just innocuous, trivial falsities, but very, very, very harmful falsities, which have negative consequences for public health and the world. I mean, yeah.

Rebecca Ching: I would say charisma doesn’t make you a leader, and I will also say, too, that you’re describing burdened leaders, folks that are driven by their traumas, their greed, their insecurities. And so, if we’re leading from a place of values (like you talked about compassion, integrity), we’re fighting to be unburdened in how we show up and how we lead. So I’m with you on that, too, and we have to be careful of who we’re giving our trust to in that process because charisma is a sneaky mofo in convincing us to build trust, so…

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Yeah, I love that.

Rebecca Ching: Gosh, Jon, we could probably talk for hours, but I am so grateful for this interview, for this conversation. I’m so grateful for the work you do. Before we go, though, I have a tradition of asking — I hope they’re fun — these fun, quickfire questions. To kick it off, what are you reading right now?

58:10

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I just finished reading something, so I’ll say this —

Rebecca Ching: Okay.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: — because it’s an incredible book. The Certainty Illusion by Timothy Caulfield, who is my friend and mentor and colleague.

Rebecca Ching: Ooh.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Yeah, he just published it a month or two ago, actually. The Certainty Illusion. It speaks to exactly the kind of misinformation space and these themes that we talked about today.

Rebecca Ching: Awesome. What song are you playing on repeat right now?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: What song am I playing on repeat? Oh, this will be revealing. [Laughs] Let’s see. I’ll say it anyway. I recently got re-obsessed with “Demon Cleaner” by Kyuss, which is sort of a — I’ve been into heavy metal and rock kind of stuff.

Rebecca Ching: I knew it. I knew it! I knew it. Again, I’m from Minnesota. I can identify. [Laughs] There’s the big-hair pop, eighties rock, and then there’s hardcore. I love it! What is the best TV show or movie that you’ve seen recently?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Well, yesterday, my wife and I binge watched Apple Cider Vinegar, which is the new Netflix series basically about, again, what we’ve been talking about, a person who essentially is a grifter who faked her own cancer diagnosis and became a wellness influencer and duped lots of people and essentially had blood on her hands as well. And I think the series did an incredible job at portraying how alternative medicine can kill and how wellness influencers can play a role in that killing, and yet they did it in a way that also shows kind of that humanity that we talked about from the perspective of the grifters. I don’t know that they were all — again, they weren’t completely malicious. That’s why I think it’s important to even acknowledge the complexity of grifters. They can have competing motivations and competing desires, and part of them could be driven by insecurities and malice and greed, and part of them could be driven by care. And so, this is the complexity.

1:00:16

Rebecca Ching: I haven’t had the energy to watch it yet, but it’s on my list, so thank you for that plug.

Now, I’m an eighties kid. I’m a Gen Xer, so I always ask my guests what their favorite eighties piece of pop culture is and if they don’t have one to pull from their childhood.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: I don’t know if this is eighties. It might be. My favorite movie is Spaceballs.

Rebecca Ching: Yes! [Laughs]

Dr. Jonathan Stea: [Laughs]

Rebecca Ching: I think it is. Oh, Spaceballs. Man, you’re really telling me a lot. I love it. What is your mantra right now?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: You kind of alluded to it earlier. I like the idea to be skeptical and not cynical.

Rebecca Ching: Ooh, yes. And what is (maybe just one) an unpopular opinion that you hold? I just want one. [Laughs]

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Just one. Yeah, I have so many. This one’s contentious, and it’s sort of loaded because I don’t want it to undermine the idea of lived experience that you mentioned earlier. But I would say an unpopular opinion is that your truth is not necessarily the truth.

Rebecca Ching: Oh. I think it’s important, yeah. I appreciate that.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Not to undermine lived experience but also to acknowledge that there are scientific realities also.

Rebecca Ching: And lastly, who or what inspires you to be a better leader and human?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Honestly, I don’t want it to come off as cliché, but I love clinical work, so I love working with my patients. It’s what drives me the most. I mean, all of the science communication, the book stuff that we’ve been talking about is also a passion of mine, but it’s a secondary passion. My first job is a clinician and working with patients, and I find that so inspiring because I get to see the complexity and the humanity of people every day, and it’s just truly a privilege to work with people in that capacity.

1:02:07

The therapeutic relationship is one like no other. It’s not a friendship. It’s not a business relationship. It’s a therapeutic one, and we get that privilege, and I find that incredibly rewarding and inspiring even though it’s very difficult and challenging at the same time.

Rebecca Ching: Yeah, I cosign with all of that. Jonathan, thank you. This was really an honor. I really appreciate your time. How can people connect with you and your important work?

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Thanks so much for having me today, too. It was fun, and it was my pleasure to talk about this. The best way to see what I’m doing is to go to my website, which is my first and last name dot com, so www.jonathanstea.com. 

Rebecca Ching: And we’ll make sure to add that to the show notes along with your Instagram. We’ve got to throw that in there, too. Thank you again for your time, for all you’re putting out there, and for how you show up in the clinical field and in the general population because we need you. So take care of you.

Dr. Jonathan Stea: Well, we need you too, so thank you for your invaluable work as well.

[Inspirational Music]

Rebecca Ching: Before you go, I want to make sure you reflect on some key insights from this important Unburdened Leader conversation with Dr. Jonathan Stea. Ah, walking away from this conversation with Jonathan I, first and foremost, felt so grateful and encouraged, and I hope you do too. Jonathan’s the real deal, and I’ve known and worked with a lot of therapists over my 22-year clinical work, and the work that Jonathan’s doing on the frontlines at the high level of care that he’s working at with such heart and integrity and devotion, it’s refreshing, it’s inspiring, and it’s rare. So I just want to acknowledge that. I can’t think of a better leader, also, to do this kind of advocacy work because he truly cares about his clients that he supports day in and day out, along with those in the mental health field. I truly am grateful for his leadership.

1:04:18

Jonathan just shared how he tackles the relentless work of fighting misinformation with intention, skill, compassion, and resolve. He reminds us this is not a one-time or one-off battle; it’s a commitment, showing up again and again even when the pushback is intense, even when the cost can be personal. And Jonathan reminds us that it’s possible to challenge harmful ideas while maintaining our humanity and honoring the humanity of others. His approach is a model of what it looks like to engage without escalating — okay, I mean, maybe he pokes a little bit of fun — but for the most part, to inform without condescension (again, he’s convicting), and to fight for what matters in a way that brings others along rather than driving them away. And this is the ongoing work of an Unburdened Leader.

Thank you all so much for joining this episode of The Unburdened Leader. You can find this episode, show notes, free Unburdened Leader resources, information on how to sign up for my new Unburdened Leader Substack, and ways to work with me at www.rebeccaching.com.

[Inspirational Music]

And this episode was produced by the wonderful team over at Yellow House Media. And just one more reminder to you all, if you haven’t already subscribed to the show or liked it, left a review, I’d be honored if you did so and if you shared it with someone you think may benefit from it. This really helps us get more eyes on the show and exposure to it, and I’d be honored for your support in that way. Thank you so much for listening!