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12/16/2025

12/16/2025

11/29/2025

Commentary by Dr. Franklin Edward Shoemaker, PhD, LMHC

On the Dual Crisis of Mental Health and Education in Modern America

We stand at a crossroads in modern America. It is not only a mental health crisis that confronts us—it is also an educational crisis. These two realities are intertwined, and together they shape the future of our families, our communities, and our nation.

🧠 The Mental Health Crisis

• Abnormalities as Normal: When behaviors rooted in trauma, disconnection, or despair are accepted as everyday realities, we lose sight of what healthy functioning looks like.
• Normal as Abnormal: When resilience, discipline, and compassion are dismissed as outdated or even suspect, we erode the very foundations of mental wellness.
• Generational Impact: This inversion of values perpetuates cycles of misunderstanding, leaving children and families without the clarity and stability they desperately need.

📚 The Educational Crisis

• Distorted Standards: When educational excellence is treated as elitist, and mediocrity is celebrated as progress, we are in crisis.
• Teacher Undermining: When educators are disrespected or silenced, students lose their most important advocates.
• Curriculum Confusion: When truth and integrity in learning are replaced by politicization or neglect, children are robbed of the tools to think critically and compassionately.

🔗 The Interconnection

Mental health and education are not separate silos. They are deeply connected:

• A child struggling with untreated trauma cannot fully learn.
• A classroom stripped of respect and order cannot nurture mental wellness.
• A community that normalizes dysfunction cannot expect its schools to produce renewal.

🌍 The Warning Sign

The inversion of values—where abnormalities are normalized and the normal is marginalized—is the clearest signal that we are in crisis. It is a signpost that demands urgent action.

✨ The Call to Renewal

• Reclaim Normalcy: We must restore clarity about what healthy development and sound education look like.
• Empower Educators: Teachers must be respected as guardians of both knowledge and well-being.
• Prioritize Mental Health: Communities must invest in trauma-informed care, early intervention, and stigma-free support.
• Mobilize Coalitions: Renewal will not come from one leader or one policy. It will come from families, educators, faith communities, and advocates standing together.

Closing Thought:
When the abnormal is celebrated and the normal is dismissed, America is in crisis. But crises are also opportunities. If we confront these distortions with courage, compassion, and principled leadership, we can restore both mental health and educational integrity. Renewal begins when we refuse to accept dysfunction as destiny.

11/29/2025

Commentary by Dr. Franklin Edward Shoemaker, PhD

On the Importance of Local Elections for Mental Health and Educational Outcomes

Local elections are often dismissed as minor compared to national contests, yet they are the very heartbeat of our communities. The decisions made by school boards, county commissions, city councils, and local judges ripple directly into the daily lives of families, educators, and children.

🗳 Why Local Elections Matter

• Immediate Impact: Local officials determine school funding, mental health resources, zoning for community centers, and the safety of our neighborhoods. These choices are not abstract—they shape the environment in which our children learn and grow.
• Accessibility: Unlike distant federal offices, local leaders are within reach. They attend our churches, shop in our stores, and hear our voices directly. Accountability is closer, but only if citizens engage.
• Generational Consequences: A single vote for a school board member can influence curriculum integrity, teacher support, and trauma-informed practices for decades.

🧠 Mental Health Outcomes

• Resource Allocation: Local governments decide whether mental health clinics are funded, whether school counselors are hired, and whether crisis intervention teams are trained.
• Community Resilience: When local leaders prioritize trauma-informed care, families receive early intervention rather than waiting until crises escalate. This reduces cycles of misunderstanding and strengthens generational unity.
• Stigma Reduction: Local elections can elevate leaders who champion compassion over stigma, ensuring that mental health is treated as a community priority rather than a private burden.

📚 Educational Outcomes

• Teacher Support: School boards set policies that either empower or exhaust educators. Respect for teachers translates into healthier classrooms and better student outcomes.
• Curriculum Integrity: Local elections influence whether curricula reflect truth, unity, and trauma-informed perspectives—or whether they fracture communities with neglect or politicization.
• Safe Learning Environments: Decisions about discipline, school safety, and student services directly affect whether children feel secure enough to learn and thrive.

🌍 The Broader Connection

When local elections are ignored, families surrender their voice to decisions that may erode both mental health and educational integrity. But when communities mobilize—when parents, teachers, and advocates vote with principled conviction—we create environments where children are protected, educators are respected, and families are strengthened.

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Closing Thought:
Local elections are not small. They are the frontline of renewal. Every ballot cast is a statement about whether we will invest in compassion, accountability, and the flourishing of the next generation. As a trauma-focused behavioral therapist and coalition leader, I urge communities to see local elections not as optional, but as essential to the mental health and educational outcomes that define our nation’s future.

10/17/2025

In a time when political noise often drowns out meaningful dialogue, Dr. Franklin Edward Shoemaker offers a principled voice that cuts through the chaos. With decades of clinical expertise and a deep commitment to ethical leadership, his Substack, Above & Beyond Politics, explores the intersection of mental health, education, and civic responsibility in modern America.
Whether you’re a practitioner, policymaker, educator, or concerned citizen, this publication delivers clear-eyed analysis, trauma-informed insights, and actionable strategies for restoring dignity and unity in our public discourse. Each post is grounded in evidence, compassion, and a belief that systems can—and must—serve humanity better.
🔹 Subscribe to join a growing community of readers who believe that healing begins with truth, and that education is a cornerstone of democracy.
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10/14/2025

07/26/2025

⚠️ Due to the Recent Allegations Circulating Regarding the Epstein Files…

Here’s some information intended to frame public understanding with clinical accuracy and reinforce the importance of protecting children and pursuing justice. While media narratives and legal investigations draw attention to high-profile cases, it’s vital to maintain a grounded and trauma-informed lens when discussing sexual abuse and psychological profiles related to exploitation.

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🧠 Psychological Profile of Individuals with Pedophilic Disorder

Definition (per DSM-5-TR):
Pedophilic Disorder is diagnosed when an adult experiences recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child (generally age 13 or younger). Diagnosis requires distress or interpersonal difficulty, or actions based on these urges.

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🔍 Core Characteristics

• Persistent Attraction to Children:
Sexual interest is typically specific, consistent, and often exclusive to prepubescent children. This attraction is considered a sexual orientation in clinical terms, though it differs from orientations based on consensual adult relationships.
• Cognitive Distortions:
Many individuals rationalize or minimize the harm of child abuse, deny the impact on victims, or claim emotional connection as justification.
• Personality Traits:
Varies widely—some may present with social withdrawal, low self-esteem, or antisocial traits; others may mask behaviors and maintain socially acceptable lives.
• Impulse Control & Offense Risk:
Not all with pedophilic interest act on their urges, but lack of impulse control, situational access, and co-occurring disorders (e.g., substance abuse, personality disorders) heighten offense risk.

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🧬 Stability of Sexual Interest

• Clinical Consensus:
Research shows that sexual preference for children in diagnosed pedophilic disorder tends to be stable over time. It is not easily altered through treatment, though behavioral strategies and ethical frameworks can reduce risk and promote accountability.
• Therapeutic Aims:
Focus is often on managing behavior—not changing orientation—with interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), relapse prevention models, and, in some jurisdictions, pharmacological support (e.g., anti-libidinal medication under strict legal oversight).

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⚖️ Ethical & Public Safety Considerations

• Protection of Children is Paramount:
Regardless of psychological complexity, societal and legal boundaries exist to protect children. There is zero tolerance for abuse or exploitation.
• Treatment Must Center on Risk Management & Accountability:
Ethical practice requires balancing compassion in clinical treatment with vigilance in safeguarding public safety and healing trauma.

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🔚 In Conclusion

It is highly unlikely that an individual diagnosed with pedophilic disorder would change his or her sexual preference to a different gender, age group, or to adults. Clinical consensus suggests that this pattern of sexual interest, once established, tends to remain stable over time—even in the presence of therapeutic intervention. While behavioral management and accountability frameworks can reduce risk and promote public safety, the underlying attraction itself is rarely altered.

07/09/2025

Come join us at Healing Together as we dive deep into Attachment Focused Adoptive Parent Competency Training to strengthen our abilities as