Is Teal Swan a Cult Leader, Supplier of Bad Advice, or Both? | "The Deep End" Analysis

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the hulu documentary titled the deep end which is about the self-proclaimed spiritual guru teel swan just a reminder i'm not diagnosing about this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoy this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon i will put the link to patreon in the description for this video first i'll go through the background of teal swan move to the summary of the documentary then offer my analysis teal

swan was born in santa fe new mexico on june 16 1984 she said that her parents were hippies who moved the family to utah when she was very young according to teal she was different from everybody else teal is not limited by time space or reality she is a half human half alien who is the reincarnation of an indian guru thiel claims that her iq score is 170 which is over four standard deviations above the mean just to put that in perspective this iq score is higher than 99.999 of the population teal claims to possess

all kinds of amazing abilities including extra sensory perception out of body travel knowing what people are thinking and feeling seeing dead relatives predicting the future and perceiving objects in the spiritual realm as a child her amazing powers had a ripple effect across her community people there believed that only a man could have spiritual gifts therefore they thought teal had to be the devil teal said that she was harassed and bullied she claimed that her parents were afraid and dragged her to see mental health clinicians teal said that she was diagnosed with several mental disorders including

schizophrenia bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder after this she went to an alternative therapist who treated her thiel claimed that she was mistreated in terrible ways for almost 13 years and had to participate in cult rituals she spent much of her time in a pit in the backyard of a criminal offender who used drugs to sedate her it's worth noting that this alleged offender stated that teal made everything up many of thiel's claims of mistreatment came up when she was working with a therapist the therapist said that teal had repressed memories this is the idea

that the brain can secretly hide traumatic memories which can be magically discovered later there is no scientific reason to believe that repressed memories are real this idea has actually led to a number of false accusations and a lot of problems over the course of many years teal said that when she was 19 her parents took her to china people there realized that she was not mentally ill but rather an incredibly special individual who had amazing gifts they taught her how to use her abilities after returning from china she worked in modeling and pursued a career

as a skier but ultimately decided to be a spiritual guru in 2012 she started a company to promote her beliefs her goal was to make it large and unstoppable during her career as a spiritual guru teel developed her own new age philosophy and mental health treatment she has promoted her controversial ideas on social media at the time making this video teal's youtube channel has about 1.3 million subscribers and is viewed over 5 million times a month it has been viewed over 150 million times total here are a few video titles that i think summarize her

channel pretty well why you should set boundaries with the universe expert opinions versus personal truth healing relationship trauma the lies that parents tell and when talking to god am i just talking to myself the title actually has the word then instead of when but i think that was just a typo i was thinking that if teal answered this question for herself it would be yes not because there is no god but more like because she believes she is god moving back to teal swan's mental health treatment protocol she developed a program called the completion process

which is supposed to help people recover from trauma teal certifies people in this therapy therefore they can unleash the healing power of the completion process onto others till swan believes that she is superior to mental health professionals she's compared herself to jesus christ martin luther king jr and gandhi she wants to be more influential than the pope in the documentary she talked about how there's no one who she looks up to because she never met anyone with more awareness than she possesses teal operates her spiritual guru business out of utah to earn money she conducts

seminars based on the completion process she produces videos and she sells books paintings and other items now moving to the summary of the documentary the documentary starts with teal living in her compound in utah with various members of her inner circle thiel talks about the head of operations for her company a man named blake they were together romantically for about a year they broke up but remained living together for 16 years at the beginning of the documentary blake is still living with teal teal said that she had 12 or 13 relationships since blake five of

them were marriages a few different story lines or themes emerged throughout the course of the four episode documentary i have divided them into five parts number one teal is shown offering what looks to be mental health therapy at various stage events like in front of a large audience she works with a few members in what appears to be group therapy and she works individually with various people number two teal is shown talking directly to the camera she offers her thoughts on her background her philosophical and spiritual beliefs and about criticism that she has received number

three various members of her inner circle are introduced using their first names it appears as though they work for just room and board they talk about their personal beliefs what they think of teal swan and various experiences number four teal hires a private investigator to examine her company and determine if she is running a cult the investigator is seen talking to various people who have interacted with teal some of these people are on good terms with her and others are not and number five blake finds a love interest who lives in germany named juliana she

moved to utah to be with blake and the couple gets married there's a lot of tension between juliana and teo swan as the documentary progresses that last story line develops into the focus as blake and juliana move away from the compound now moving to my analysis here are my thoughts on a few items that stood out to me in this case item number one teal swan tells people that she can heal past trauma and address other mental health symptoms yet she does not have a license to practice as a mental health clinician teal appears to

be hiding behind the idea that she's practicing spirituality and not counseling from looking at the various people who attend her functions it's clear that some of them could be suffering from serious mental health symptoms theo has been criticized for the way she handles a person's desire to bring an end to their own life she refers to this act as hitting a reset button she believes that people are reincarnated so i guess dying is no big deal in addition she asks people to imagine themselves going through the act which is not an accepted way or scientifically

supported way to address those concerns on teal's website she has number of certified practitioners again these are people who are certified to perform the completion process there are many specialties these practitioners claim to be able to treat including depression anxiety panic attacks burnout addiction ptsd dissociation anger eating disorders cult survivor insomnia and fatigue i would believe the occult survivor specialty is something that the people would be qualified to talk about but i'm not sure about the other items it worries me that teal swan would offer any type of training which would falsely lead people to

believe they are qualified to treat serious mental health symptoms item number two here i will offer a few examples from the documentary that demonstrate how teal was out of her depth when trying to perform counseling and how she lacks clinical insight during a one-on-one interaction with a customer or follower a man talks about how he may be sexually attracted to teal she has a strong reaction to this and was clearly upset when discussing the situation with her inner circle it was kind of a dramatic moment where she didn't really seem to know what to do

if teal had actual training in mental health counseling she would know that a client being attracted to a therapist is not only common but expected under certain circumstances during another situation teal is frustrated because a follower appears to be threatening to harm herself teal's primary concern appears to be liability like she will be in trouble if something happens to the follower if teal were an actual clinician she would have plans in place to deal with those circumstances teal is frustrated by fairly common situations that occur when working with people who have mental health symptoms during

stage events teal can be seen addressing the concerns of her followers by offering simple and obvious questions and failing to demonstrate any insight for example she asked one follower what it would take to make her happy the person responded by saying nothing teal then said why are you still on the planet after this everybody in the audience clapped as if they had just heard something useful this is a very common tactic with self-proclaimed spiritual gurus they deliver statements confidently but the actual content of what they state is nonsense useless or meaningless it only sounds profound

without knowing what the words mean item number three teal conceptualizes mental health symptoms as originating from traumatic experiences one of teel's key phrases is something like don't ask people what's wrong with them ask what happened to them sometimes trauma does cause symptoms but often people have symptoms with no obvious cause the idea that everything is caused by trauma is dangerous and not supported by evidence it's important to be able to treat someone for symptoms without knowing what caused the symptoms if mental health clinicians needed to know the cause before offering effective treatment very few people

would get treated item number four based on teals trauma causes everything conceptualization her treatment method is based on reliving the trauma in the safe environment of one of her retreats she believes the trauma can be undone through what she calls the soul retrieval process teals reliving the trauma component may function a little bit like exposure therapy which is a real treatment modality but it can only be delivered by a qualified clinician once again we see teal wandering into an area she does not understand some of her followers may feel better due to exposure catharsis or

a placebo effect but without follow-up care symptoms will likely return item number five as i mentioned one of the major themes of the documentary is the dramatic tension and feelings of acrimony between blake juliana and teal based on blake getting married to juliana and the couple living and working with teal swan it appears as though teal was very hard on giuliana from the beginning like she didn't really have confidence that this was going to work out it appears as though teal was jealous of juliana from the beginning like teal laid down the law by saying

that her only safety was the community and she wasn't going to be happy about any truth that opposes her truth i find it interesting that she believes there are multiple versions of the truth toward the end of the documentary teal confronts juliana and turns the inner circle against her teal has all the inner circle members say what they think juliana believes about teal which seems like an unnecessary and ridiculous exercise blake and juliana move out after this teal indicates that blake sleeving has broken her heart she tells him never to forget he is a loser

she was even mad at the people who wished him well online after blake and juliana leaf teal has a meeting with the remaining members of her inner circle where she talks about how it's important to keep her safe she wants to put a new policy in place which basically says she can reject any member if she doesn't like their partner in addition all the inner circle members have to agree never to have children item number six another theme in the documentary is the exploration into whether teal is running a cult or not teal is sensitive

to the idea that she is running a cult she believes being portrayed in this way can hurt her financially here are my thoughts on this cult idea teal engages in some behavior which is consistent with being a cult leader and other behavior which is not i will look at each side of this starting with the evidence that supports the idea that she is a cult leader teo had a list of what she called non-negotiables this is a list of rules that the inner circle must agree to like teal must come first members should be careful

not to introduce harmful people to teal and they have to accept their lives will not be normal teal has elevated herself to a position of importance she calls herself a spiritual catalyst she clearly believes that she is extremely important to the world one could argue she believes that she is a deity teal does not seem to be happy when people leave her inner circle one former inner circle member claimed that when he left teal told him there was no hope and he should end his life that same member said he was willing to kill someone

and bury them in a backyard for teal teal claims to be able to channel dead people like she can have a dead person inhabit her body and speak to people there's one scene where teal has juliana channel the dead mother of a follower in reality nobody was channeling anything except money from the pockets of the followers teal is teaching her inner circle members to be deceptive to pretend to have magical powers one scene showed teal complaining about her customers she wanted to force people to follow her plan this is not therapeutic at all teal was

accused of cutting inner circle members off from their families she denies this in the documentary looking at the factors against the idea that teal was running a cult teal clearly invited documentary filmmakers into her compound most cult leaders would not be inclined to do this teal treats her inner circle members and her followers differently her followers attend seminars but do not live in the compound they do not drop everything to follow teal they are not cut off from their family members rather they follow her online and occasionally might attend a retreat when weighing the evidence

do i think that teal swan is running a cult i think she is not running a cult as far as how she treats her followers but her behavior toward her inner circle is consistent with a cult leader like she's running a compact emotionally charged and disorganized cult if teal's cult was a soft drink it would be named cult light now moving to my final thoughts throughout the documentary teal swan is defensive smug overly confident volatile self-centered vindictive and arrogant teal said that her followers believe that they have nothing else to lose teal's haphazard approach to

helping them suggests that she is trying to prove them wrong they definitely have something else to lose a few things in fact namely their time money common sense and dignity those are my thoughts on the documentary the deep end please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis on this topic to be as intriguing as a half human half alien money channeling cult leader thanks for watching