The new identitarians: How the behavioral movement and psychology in general have been ideologically captured

Recent developments within the mental health professions suggest a growing ideological capture by left-wing identitarian frameworks, with significant implications for clinical ethics, scientific integrity, and public health. This article argues that the increasing fusion of psychotherapy with political activism, particularly through the spread of decolonial therapy and related approaches, has contributed to discriminatory practices. This has led to identity-based discrimination toward Jewish clinicians and clients, specifically those who identify as Zionist. We argue that these frameworks impose ideological litmus tests, lack empirical support, and conflict with core professional obligations to avoid harm, maintain fidelity to evidence-based practice, and ensure equitable access to care. These ideological frameworks could easily coalesce around discrimination toward other groups, and thus this analysis is intended to raise awareness of a political purity movement that may isolate specific groups for political means and couch it within a treatment model. Drawing on clinical ethics, emerging scholarship on traumatic invalidation and microaggression, and recent patterns within professional institutions, we examine how antisemitism has become normalized in certain psychological spaces and why this poses risks extending beyond Jewish communities. We conclude by offering concrete recommendations to re-center mental health care on rigorous science and patient well-being.