Dr. Andrew Hartz

Meet Do No Harm member Dr. Andrew Hartz, a practicing clinical psychologist and formerly a professor in the clinical psychology doctoral program at Long Island University. 

Most recently, Dr. Hartz and several partners founded the Open Therapy Institute, an organization 

providing mental health services, consulting, continuing education, and research focused on overlooked issues in mental health.

He was inspired to found the Institute due to the politicization of mental health care across the country and around the globe that he has observed through his work. 

“Increasingly, therapists aren’t clinically competent to treat patients with diverse viewpoints,” he shared with us. “They don’t understand huge chunks of the country who  have views they disagree with…. Therapists are bombarded with diversity training that has a very narrow ideological view of society.”

Last summer he penned “Leftist Extremism Is Turning Therapists And Counselors Against Their Own Clients,” a shocking expose of just how political the therapists’ office has become – including the story of a  panel of clinicians who opted to recommend a confrontational approach regarding racism rather than addressing the depression and anxiety the patient was experiencing and his frustration after losing a research fellowship based on affirmative action. 

In fact, not only did they decide to confront him, they also determined that he would be asked to leave therapy if he didn’t recognize his own biases. 

This politicization of mental health services is  frightening and damaging to the patients, profession, and society at large. 

“People need access to a therapist who is not going to insert political ideology into the therapy and make it patient-centered, says Dr. Hartz. “We want to train people to address these populations and to address issues like dialogue and family conflict around issues in society.“

It is also why he is excited to work with Do No Harm. 

“I heard about Do No Harm through the media. Then, Dr. Goldfarb was on a panel with the Manhattan Institute and one of our leaders was also on that panel. It struck me how aligned we are and how important it is to get the word out.”

Political ideology has no place in medicine – from the exam room to the therapy room. I commend Dr. Hartz and the team at the Open Therapy Institute for their groundbreaking work aligning therapy with patient needs, not political bias.