In therapy the silent pause is a compelling and effective intervention that has never failed to produce an unknown but positive outcome. I have learned to appreciate its usefulness during my 10 years as a licensed marriage and family therapist. It is awkward but always works. Emma Gonzalez' March for Our Lives speech is the face of the New America. What has taken me years to perfect this wonderkid Emma Gonzalez did effortlessly in her recent address to the nation. Moreover, could Naomi Wadler, vibrant and far beyond her eleven years of age, be included into this group of the New Political Rat Pack.
One might argue that we have not seen this type of passion and social and civic energy since the Civil Rights Ear of the 60's. What is difficult in this discussion is the unease about one's rights, which is a define of who we are as Americans. And personal choice. Individuality is also the defines of who we are. Although it could create many blessing, it also presents a negative for the collective communal growth. Moreover, there are one's beliefs. Thus, when you discuss even the idea of taking aways something we are edging into a dangerous arena.
I have recently ponder in treatment, or counseling, about the clients' avoidance of difficult material within their lives, their families, their beliefs, and their inner demons. Politics, one might argue, could be similar to doing-the-work in therapy. To touch on raw complex emotions is often avoided. The skipped, weeks to avoid the therapist whom you know will cause you to deal with difficult subjects. The cancellations and not returning to treatment and meandering through situational challenges never fully addressing psychic wounds is all to common.
Thus, our American culture equates change in policy and social change as going to therapy. Politics can drag agendas and laws to a stagnation for decades. This is the ongoing "non-problem" and the undiagnosed and the relapsing, or, the denial. However, the assassination (however painful), the Living vs. Virginia, the Roe vs. Wade, the National Farms Worker's Association, the woman's right to vote, the gay marriage, to countless changes in the social construct is Politics.
So the discussion becomes this equation. We can accept that art defines or creates or impacts culture. Art moves culture and society into a direction. If true then social change and politics defines or creates or impacts mental health or the Psyche of the American Culture. Therefore, as an analyst that understands and investigates the Collective Unconscious or the American Psyche I have to inform that this is a rocky period in our culture. We are in the midst of change. The question is this: Who is the symbolic therapist in the room? If the room is America and there is unease who is containing us as we move forward. These young leaders in Never Again and March for Our Lives have created their ontological force. The analyst in this mythos needs to be firm, set boundaries and at the same time allow the culture to grow in the unconscious direction it is destined to grow. In a recent tweet the former president of the United States of America, President Obama, who has a daughter in school in Washington, told the teenagers they inspired him and his wife. "You're leading us forward," the 44th president tweeted. But he is not the therapist in the room. Who is this analyst? And what is their modality? Will they give us enough tools to take into the future or will they only provide us with a quick fix only to have our stressors return at a later time in history. 
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