Sasha Ayad, LPC

What Therapists Get Wrong with Adolescent Gender Dysphoria read here: sashaayad.substack.com/p/what-therapi…

Best interview of the entire World Cup. "I don't know what is happening"

True 🇪🇸♥️🇪🇸

@thatwallstguy They really did. An amazing team

@SashaLPC They plaid magnificently, Sasha - I really wanted them to win!

With every world cup win, Egypt has made history for the country. I'm so excited and proud 💗

Throughout the Egypt world cup games, I was trying to explain to my husband that Hany looks exactly like an ancient fresco... or is it a Coptic Church Icon? Vaguely, I knew I was right but couldn't find the proof. Till now... Thank you Lulu

@Kittywampus 💗 🇪🇬

@SashaLPC The worst officiating was in France-Paraguay, where the latter played so foul, they should’ve earned multiple red cards. Bad officiating has always existed, but VAR seems to be exacerbating it, not helping. I’m now a fan of Egypt!

And why isn't this same strategy (of reviewing video and voiding a goal that takes place afterwards) applied to the other team?

@Kittywampus Aww thank you - yes, I have nothing against Argentina. I just wish they applied rules evenly to both teams. So heartbreaking for that beautiful goal to have been voided. Fairness in sports is such a fundamental issue-as we know all too well from other areas!

@SashaLPC I had seen your tweet about being excited for Egypt, & I thought of you during that game. I so enjoy seeing Messi play, & this is probably his last rodeo, so I rooted for Argentina. But Egypt absolutely had a legit gripe. Only thing everyone seems to agree on: VAR is an issue!😾

In meaningful psychotherapy, we help patients move from the general to the specific, from the abstract to the personal. We encounter resistance along the way, which itself becomes the focus of our attention and curiosity. 👉Tell me what you mean 👉Can you give me an example 👉Say more 👉I notice you didn’t mention 👉Something makes it hard to talk about this 👉Perhaps there’s a reason you left that out 👉What more comes to mind 👉I notice you looked sad when you said 👉Perhaps it’s easier to focus on this than that 👉Can you put words to those tears 👉I notice we quickly got away from the topic of 👉Help me connect the dots These comments are made in a spirit of non-judgmental curiosity, intended to invite the patient to *be curious* with us, without blame or shame. They help create space for the patient to notice, attend to, and begin to put words to areas of experience that were previously unknown or unacknowledged. This approach to psychotherapy takes account of unconscious mental life: we do not fully know our own hearts and minds, there are multiple layers of experience, and emotional life is complex and often contradictory. This is how we become more self-aware and more whole. The therapeutic stance of *finding out together* is very different from providing tips, tools, worksheets, advice, or solutions. It is also very different from automatically affirming or validating whatever is on the surface, before we could possibly understand what we’re validating. The starting point of in-depth psychotherapy is recognizing there is more than meets the eye, and working to develop a relationship in which patient and therapist can discover it together.

@JonathanShedler Or it would be an indicator that your therapist is AI

If a psychotherapist responded like this, it would be an example of incompetence and gross negligence.

"The Trevor Project implies that “support” for your gender-questioning child means taking the lead in advocating (maybe even more enthusiastically than your child is) for the use of new pronouns, policing your family’s language, and even crossing off your favorite political candidates if they have the wrong views on legal and policy issues. With messaging like this, it’s no surprise that today’s conventional wisdom on gender identity and family relationships reads something like: If your kid comes out as trans and you don’t affirm their gender identity, you’re at risk of becoming estranged. In fact, preventing permanent damage to the relationship is one of the most common reasons given by parents who started out by affirming. Many families, in moments of desperation or vulnerability, follow this script to a T. But if perfect affirmation supposedly creates a perfect shield against mental health deterioration or relationship tensions, what happens when parents take that gender leap of faith and everything falls apart anyway?"

Affirming Trans Identities Does Not (Necessarily) Prevent Estrangement open.substack.com/pub/sashaayad/…

GO EGYPT!

Thanks for having me on your program! I enjoyed the conversation.

@BeeTee2887 @sam_gzstrength It's strange how little doctors know about the health benefits of strength and muscle mass

@SashaLPC @sam_gzstrength I have a female client that's 52 and she mentioned to her doc that she was training and was going to be competing in a meet for fun. He told her she shouldn't and that she wouldn't do very good. Insane. She ended up totally 600+ which is pretty damn good actually.

In a world of optimally optimal training, you can just keep getting your barbell lifts strong and profit.

@cliftonaduncan Much of my Spotify is still only 90s/early 2000s Hip Hop. I'm pretending the present moment doesn't exist.

If you came of age listening to female rappers like MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, Salt N' Peppa and Lauryn Hill, you understand the visceral disgust I feel seeing this.

@wolfstrength Wow, yes - exactly the same every time. Very impressive!

605x5 is impressive enough. But Brooks shows technical mastery of the lift as well. Efficiently done via the Standard Pulling Position, squeezed up every rep, bar on legs, and “same every time.” This is as close to a model set as it gets in real life with this kind of weight.

@JenniferSey I despise "going in with" - these guys are hilarious!

The trend of mocking “influencers” is my favorite new form of entertainment. And these guys cracking up while doing it is top notch.

@wolfstrength @BowTiedHRT I saw a recent video by Coach Kolton who was talking about this exact thing: youtu.be/spGYp8dMi9U?si…

Maybe it’s just today’s super HD cameras revealing what was always there but we couldn’t see, but on the surface it looks like female bodybuilders today have a lot more masculinization than they did in previous generations. Even comparing the ones in less extreme divisions today to the actual bodybuilder of before. Any thoughts about that?

Definitely was being coached by some clown who had her using everything a girl doesn’t need. Mast is so unnecessary for women. Tren sparingly is okay. She definitely ran a bunch of Nand which is an absolute no no. And I’ll bet a couple of dollars her coach had her cutting with Clen and pushing Nolva like it was 1988. We see some pretty terrible protocols in men’s TRT and blast cycles but nothing compares to the disastrous protocols women are encouraged to use by their coaches in bodybuilding. Bunch of zero knowledge manipulative predators masquerading as coaches in the female bodybuilding world.