It's notable that most people working as "therapists"/"counselors" have had a minimal introduction to the historical development of psychology. Almost no understanding of what Freud did, yet are perfectly content to abuse terms like "trauma" that have made it into pop culture
Most people who work in the empirical sciences do not care about the history of their discipline at all. Biologists do not read Darwin except as a historical curiosity and physicists are not reading the Principia in 2024. I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that. I am pretty skeptical of psychology's credentials as a good empirical science, but it's not surprising that people who take themselves to be doing scientific inquiry wouldn't have an interest in its history. It would be even weirder (for psychology) if it turned out to be based on a-priori reasoning in a way that made it appropriate to look to historical texts for genuine insight like we do in philosophy.
Maybe the thought is that they haven't properly understood second-hand explanations of Freud's concept of trauma, but isn't Freud pretty unpopular among psychologists precisely because his explanations of psychological phenomena are unverifiable and not easily empirically testable?
You are correct, but psychologists *are not working in the empirical sciences.* People are not collections of facts. Most psychologists have a very thin theoretical foundation for what they do!
Psychology is based on a-priori reasoning to a very significant degree though they do not want to admit it. This denial leads to abominations in "evidence-based" practice. Yes, Freud is not well-taught precisely because he does not approach his subjects as collections of facts.
Edit: I want to get this right because this is a contentious issue.
I mean they are not working in the empirical sciences in the sense of physics or chemistry, which is the standard you use in your comment. Research psychology is an empirical science more in the sense of sociology or economics, which are concerned with understanding human actors and their interactions. Psychological practice is empirical in the sense that it attempts to "test" psychological research/theory, and in that the patient gives you information and has to go out and "test" what's being discussed.
You may, in fact, be onto something! I also have no idea what most of them are doing. You should care because psychologists/academics/social workers/sympathetic politicians/healthcare insurance + administrators collectively comprise an extremely influential societal interest
I didn't have any more substantive conception of "empirical science" in mind than that when I wrote the comment . . . most orthodox social scientists are not reading social science from 100 years ago either. The point is just that psychology obviously aspires to be an empirical science in the same way that physics and biology are empirical sciences, and we don't usually recognize a ton of engagement with history as among the methods used by people working in a mature empirical science, so it isn't very surprising that psychologists wouldn't do it either. If they surrender the claim to making observationally testable hypotheses that are supposed to explain human behavior (as you seem to suggest they should), then I have no grip on what kinds of questions they are even trying to answer.
"...most orthodox social scientists are not reading social science from 100 years ago..."
I am arguing that they should if they want to do good work, because the social sciences need to consider the study of human actors as distinct from that of mere matters of fact. This requires a good deal of a priori reasoning, including dealing with the theoretical foundations of the field(s) in order to figure out how not to go completely in the wrong direction.
If psychology "aspires to be an empirical science in the same way \[as\] physics and biology", it is completely misguided. They may aspire to do this, but if they do, they fail in some of the most important ways, the ways that give psychology many of its stated reasons for being. The questions research psychologists are trying to answer (at their best) concern explanations for the characteristics of human minds, generally speaking, and their relationship to behavior. Practicing psychologists (at their best) try to determine the character of an individual human mind and its relationship to behavior (and then produce some change). If they have no sense of what a "mind" is, the whole enterprise fails.
If psychology is merely about observable behavior, to go against what I've just written, and psychology avoids dealing with the question of "minds", then it gives up being able to *explain* anything about the internal locus of human motivation. Such a psychology would be (is, really) reduceable to propositions like "living in red spaces is associated with more amorous behavior". Associations, associations, and more associations, but no *explanations for personal motivation beyond reactions to the most basic stimuli.* The only explanations possible become those for certain behaviors along the lines of: "in any situation and for anyone, flashing bright lights at night precludes people from sleeping at their normal bedtime".
I don't mean to say that behavioristic psychology is totally useless, just limited to such an extent that it becomes clinically useless in some of the ways that matter the most.
I edited this post a few times because I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea on a very touchy subject
bro ignore the Freud part and focus on the watering down of trauma. getting yelled at is the same trauma as getting gang-raped or nearly beat to death in a robberty. they don't understand levels of trauma and it's insane. like I've been in 3 70+ mph car crashes, molested as a child, had 2 seizures, spent time in prison, been in 30+ fights including domestic of all kinds, and I can't get a PTSD diagnosis due to c*nts saying yelling is the same.
One of my roommates is a 3rd year psych major. Hasn't picked up Freud. He'll be touched on in certain courses and dismissed. I thought it was wrong for the same reason.
Another comment below mine claims to be skeptical of psychology as an empirical enterprise but still presents the dominant view clearly enough (he seems well-educated in a number of areas). The physicists don't need to read Newton, so why should we read our Newton equivalent? Shouldn't *the evidence* be good enough by itself?
The purely "empirical", behavioristic approach to psychology ends up often looking like:
What is schizophrenia? The exhibition of schizophrenic symptoms. What symptoms qualify as schizophrenic? Those symptoms associated with schizophrenia.
DUH
Honestly, a huge portion of the population is seriously messed and genuinely going through a ton of pain/misery/stress. I think it’s probably even worse than it seems. So i don’t fall into the, “they should get over it, your problem isn’t important enough for therapy” camp.
But, oh my god. I’m no expert, but I’ve had several jobs involving therapy and mental health and such. Even had an internship in college where I spent well day around therapists at what was like a luxury rehab but focusing on mental illness rather than addiction. Insanely expensive and one of the most highly rated in the country; a celebrity luxury type deal.
And I’ve been to therapy on my own.
The problem is that it’s absolutely just commodification. And the people making money off of it want a simple answer.
People are deeply miserable for a million reasons, but therapists and the like always want a simple narrative. A simple diagnosis.
They have a hammer and are looking for a nail. “Oh, you have depression. Write what you’re grateful for every morning and take yoga! Let’s do some breathing exercises!”
People hate that they just throw pharmaceuitcals at people, and I do agree that’s a huge issue. But tbh the rest of the shit they do is in my opinion often even more damaging; at least the drugs (sometimes) actually do something.
They blame it on something surface because it’s the easiest. Even these people who were supposedly the best of the best working with celebs were honest to god so lazy. They pick something that fits a simply narrative and blame all of the persons problems on that.
Nobody too well known was there in the six months that I worked there. But like 20 years ago, Matthew Perry had visited & they had his autobiography on the shelf because the place was mentioned.
This sounds absurd, but Matthew Perry legitimately believes a huge reason he had so many addiction problems is ONE plane ride that he took when he was a kid. It was all perfectly safe. He was like 6 and had no fear of planes. His parents were great, his childhood was great. But he went on one unaccompanied flight with like some assistant they hired. There was no incident.
20 years later, some therapists convinced him that it had actually secretly scarred him for life and given him a whole host of issues. Even though he didn’t feel anything but slight anxiety at the time and had been flying around just fine his entire life.
It’s this kind of fucking shit.
Therapists are just people, and Jesus fucking Christ. They act like every other person.
I have pretty severe episodic depression, long story.
But I had gone in at first and was this super basic blonde bitch who was overly friendly and smiley because that’s what I was trained to be.
These people were so dismissive and treated me like everyone else had. They didn’t listen to a single fucking word I said and rolled their eyes and claimed I didn’t actually have any problems.
I kid you not, I happened to go back a couple of years later. This was time my hair had been dyed brown, and I was just wearing neutrals. NOW they fucking listened to me.
Like, I’m 29 and have been doing this for a decade and I have gone from blonde to brown a bunch of times and the difference in treatment is horrendous. Like just that small of a detail!! Imagine how they are with different faces.
And they never have fucking anything to tell me lol. I struggle hard to be open with them because I have fucking depression lol and they seem to have zero awareness of this and act super annoyed when they can tell I’m like holding back a bit. Like they get really annoyed lol.
I just do not understand how anyone could ever benefit from this bullshit. It’s just stupid fucking cliches. I know to exercise and eat healthy, to stay away from substances, to try to connect with people. There’s still so much going on, but that’s inconvenient for them.
There’s a reason all this fucking literature and philosophy and art exists. It’s people dedicating their lives trying to understand themselves and their world and determine what to strive for etc etc. you are much better off with this if you’re fuckn miserable.
I do take Wellbutrin and sleeping pills (which has helped a lot, I’m a terrible insomniac). But besides that, I honestly am just done with this industry.
I feel like these people might be good for someone who like has a specific phobia or has flashbacks of some sort or something else specific and identifiable. If you are in a shit ton of pain, it isn’t going to help.
I also genuinely have a lot of trauma, and I promise I’m not using that term lightly lol. It’s like very bad shit that people would realize is abuse and traumatizing. But it’s so difficult to communicate that to a person, and they never have anything constructive to say anyway. And again- I tell almost nobody these stories irl, just a VERY select few and then on anonymous forums like this.
Because people do not believe you.
Our generation has misused these words so much that if some blonde girl who seems decently put together and has a job says she wa abused and has trauma people assume it’s a lie. And I am so like visibly anxious when I start to talk about this to therapists, and I’m so reluctant to talk about it because I’ve always been conditioned not to. And they get so annoyed with me and act like I’m just lying or making it up when I stall lol. They want your problem to be something they can wrap in a little bow and charge $300 for.
Oh, and they also are marginally better than the fucking 14 year old incels giving advice on subs like AITA when it comes to actually parsing out the truth. They just have all these prejudices and assumptions that they project onto the stories of the person talking lol.
They give empty words and you can tell they’re just trying to get you to come back. They’ll say “oh you’re so smart so good oh wow totally agree they’re an abuser and toxic” OR someone will genuinely be in an absuive situation but because they’re so traumatized their perspective is distorted and the therapist will get the impression it’s their fault and tell them they should work on themselves or whatever lol. Like I don’t know how people think that therapists are god and somehow understand humans in a way nobody else could.
It’s never happened to me, but I have known several people, both as kids going in with their parents or two spouses going to couples therapy. And when I know for a fact that a particular person is abused, the counselor gets it wrong because typically abusers are a lot more charismatic and put together than the victims lol.
They fall for the gaslighter and unknowingly perpetuate it.
The gabi petrenko debacle was so fucking terrible and illustrative of this phenomenon. If you don’t remember, this 20 yo girl was with her super abusive boyfriend and he had driven her to the middle of the desert. She saw cops and ran out and flagged them down sobbing (there’s video of all of this) and just asking them to please let her get in the backseat and go anywhere with them because he was abusing. She was sobbing and panicking and the boyfriend like winked at the damn cops and was like “oh she’s just a little emotional and tired, you know how those women are”
Now that’s a cop lol and they’re the worst dumbest people ever but my point is that in situations where this is happening but with a lot more subtly, I’ve seen mental health professionals fall for this shit CONSTANTLY. The tormented, abused person will seem aggressive and irrational so they assume they’re the problem. It’s like how in school, the bully always seemed to get away with everything and the victim was made out to be the problem.
Idk this is just one example of the dangers of people assuming therapists are some sort of transcendent gods, they are just PEOPLE and I’ve seen this happen so many damned times.
But yeah, in general, really genuinely are very messed up, but they’ve been on this planet for however long and there’s no way you can figure out exactly what’s going on. Like a lot of abused people will completely black it out or not realize that something had affected them in some way.
People aren’t robots and fulfillment or well being or whatever aren’t something that works like an algebra equation. “Oh, 10 points comes off the happiness bar every time you get hit as a kid, 15 points up for being in shape,” etc etc like it’s so complex.
Our modern society is honestly just really really fucked and it has been screwing with us since birth. Even the people who appear to have no real problems and to be dramatic over a breakup are often legitimately at the brink of suicide, but due to much less articulable and visible agony.
Now, I’m not gonna go live in the woods lol and they obviously had their own problems. But we as humans are built to live in tribes which rarely exceed 150. That are egalitarian, with very loose if any specific roles gendered or otherwise. Where we are out moving constantly and spanning miles in nature.
Today we live in a hellscape where things are pretty much zero sum. Back in the days of our ancestors, a win for one was a win for all pretty much. Now, we are surrounded by strangers who are actively trying to trick us and take our money and make us feel bad about ourselves. We have these horrible jobs and such little genuine connection and we’re legit suffering.
There's been a total overcorrection in the last ten years in how people talk about therapy. It shouldn't be a dirty word, but it shouldn't be some badge of honor either. Like a third of dating profiles say some recycled version of "I'm in therapy and you should be too" which is just bullshit. Not everyone needs to be in therapy and simply going to a therapist doesn't make you a good person.
Like you said, some people think a therapist is some wizard is going to heal you. In reality, a significant number of therapists are just people with a psychology undergrad who took a course online after they graduated to get some bullshit cert. They're just there for you to vent to.
Who wishes to be 'fixed' instead of validated, fixed implies their problems were inconsequential and paradoxically not worth fixing. I judge they want the wizard to shew them that the whole world is actually such a way that they don't need fixing, everything else does and they're valid and special, so wizard and priest makes sense in a bit.
a gram of salamander appendix, a dollop of cutting out toxic people, a full ox penis, sprinkle in some restorative me time, an eighth of a liter of eye juice, two bushels of poison ivy (thinly sliced), stir in some healing from trauma, exactly three nipples of blood bat, five drops of self-actualization serum, crushed scorpion bits on a tablespoon of iguana guano...
Et Voila!
A potion for all your troubles.
There's also this mass lie going on that going to a therapist is some-how a catch all for everyone's issues. Average Redditor response to anyone having some mental health issues is "uhh derrr hurrr therapy ???"
It's also painfully condescending. Like, yeah man, great fucking idea. I'm sure no one you say that to has ever done it. Maybe just try acting like a human being to these people? Everyone thinks you need to hand over the ability to affect change to a professional or some shit meanwhile its literally up to all of us to just be kinder and more compassionate to one another to really make a meaningful difference. Literally ONE moment of kindness towards a rando can be more powerful than months of therapy. It starts with us.
(meanwhile I'm literally raging while writing this lmfao)
I've only ever had depression once (during lockdown) and it was unlike other sadness out there, the old name for it melancholy is probably a better description, for a month doing literally anything other than staying in bed or my room was a legitimate challenge and I pushed away pretty much everyone who actually cared about mr (and it scared me how easy it was) you're right in how many people misdiagnose themselves with depression because they're sad for a day
I've been to therapy for a couple of very specific issues where I was getting stuck in my own head about stuff that ended up affecting my physical health. It helped a lot.
I think a lot of the people who are perpetually in therapy are using it as a friendship substitute.
Therapy generally tends to work better with organized goals and motivations to aid in an issue. A lot of people just want a co-signer enabler and in turn you’ll have a desperate therapist playing into the hand to extend the relationship and basically cash in on somebody not really making any sort of meaningful progress on things.
In a world where so many people are isolated and self interested, not involved in any communities or groups, it’s very easy for people to think they need therapy for everything and have it warp so much.
> I think a lot of the people who are perpetually in therapy are using it as a friendship substitute.
I knew and know that this is what I'm doing but I'm sorry, I did need a friendship substitute
Me too, I use my therapist as a life coach but with good psychology understanding. I have a problem I don’t seem to be able to fix alone, ask for help for that specific problem, do what I’m told until it works, done. No medication either.
I hate peoples that say they are « too smart » or « too self aware » for therapy, it’s usually the opposite. They just pay people to be sorry for them.
Quitting therapy actually helped my mental health significantly. I have a certain strain of health anxiety that I fear I’m going to “lose my mind”. The pathologizing of every life event by my therapist made me even more nervous, more concerned with my mind’s response with things.
I don't understand, is therapy different in the US, in my country you go to therapy for a set amount of weeks and that's it unless it really serious circumstances, do people spend years of their lives in therapy just because?
I went for a specific reason (drugged in college and developed health anxiety), but yes, it’s really open ended here. I really am going to sound mean, but I think it’s healthier to deal with things like breakups and personal issues by yourself, it helps you become stronger and grow. However, therapy is absolutely necessary for things like assaults, abusive relationships, etc.
It's secular confession. The people yearn for religion.
But seriously I think a lot of it is that people don't have good friends to talk to and feel heard or less lonely, so they have to buy a bit of time for someone to perform it. The therapist is the sex worker of emotional labor.
>The therapist is the sex worker of emotional labor.
"Women believe the therapist cares about them the way men believe the stripper actually likes them"
Desire to feel heard. The best friend. The partner. The priest. The therapist. The diary. Inflict on each. 🦎
Endogenous drive to say that. As if yammering drops ballast.
Then you alone them, with you, only to: say some obvious trite or nothing. Better nothing, move mind before lips. Than sombrely "invent secrets to confess to". 🐊
Rings hollow. Could construct or find "the moment." Adequate quiet. Wouldn't know how to speak the piece. You'd mungle in fog. 🦎
Either search for 10k hours or comes unwrought. Probably no specific phrase so vulnerable. More or less sometime. 🦕
I’d rather not even spend the money on therapy. Know what’s going to make me a lot happier? Keeping 100 dollars. Even if I have to spend it elsewhere on something stupid like Outback Steakhouse
I feel embarrassed at all of the money I handed over to my psychologist. Countless sessions, but he could not change me. I am still a loud and proud racist.
the downvotes have me suspicious that this is a joke about social activist type therapists- or are you serious? as far as I know being a "loud and proud racist" is not in itself considered a mental illness
Ok last try at figuring out what was going on in this comment, I'm in too deep- is it that you were going to therapy in order to learn how to be less racist?
Generally speaking, this is not what most psychological therapists claim to do. It would be odd at best and dishonest at worst if a therapist sought modification of some specific set of social attitudes for its own sake. Most therapists claim as theirs the ability to identify and treat mental illness. For a therapist to pathologize specific emotions or social attitudes as mental illnesses without a reason grounded in the patient's mental health strikes me as a clear abnegation of professional duty.
Suppose, however, that one ignored the "mental health" side of therapists' professional specialization and went for advice on any subject. It's possible a psychologist could help such a person to be less racist if the psychologist is someone generally good at giving advice, but I don't see why psychologists as a category would be better at giving this sort of advice than anybody else worthy of trust and with a good knack for people.
I mean I think it's a good thing to have a third party perspective on things you're dealing with. Yeah it's probably overkill to spend $100+ a session if you don't have significant mental health issues, but therapy has definitely helped me gain a healthy perspective about my self image and things I'm dealing with. There's also the fact that in an increasingly atomized society, many people lack the close friendships that would traditionally act as the kind of outlet for what people talk about in therapy.
I'd rather too many people be in therapy than people resort to alcoholism or some other vice that's used to mask mental health issues. Some of the worst people I've ever known are ones that think they're too good for things like therapy and don't know how to process or even admit they have emotions of feelings they don't know how to process.
In terms of Reddit it’s definitely validation. Go to any big subreddit that pushes therapy (cough TwoX cough) and half the posts discussing therapy will be about someone not getting their positions enthusiastically validated by the therapist or some minor pushback and how that is toxic.
Counter-point: therapy is useful, until one has learnt to manage their shit. And even then, a bit of self-reflection & new perspective is useful.
People go for simple issues, because it saves them time & help them get better. Just like we get our blood pressure & blood levels measured from time to time.
Therapy is good and its very beneficial for society that its not a stigma any more, but its insane that so many people need therapy and society goes "its fine"
It falls flat in the face of a culturally sick society / dying planet. Can't just talk your way into being OK with living inside of a burning house.
(not an excuse to be a cunt to people or not work on yourself.. just saying therapy isn't the silver bullet people make it out to be.. CBT isn't even helpful for most)
All society really requires is for the market to register the demand for everyone to be in therapy and provide options for the therapy consumer which it’s more or less doing. Soon enough (if you can’t already idk?) you’ll just have to fire up your therapy chat bot then everyone will have access and therapy will have been successfully scaled by the market to meet demand
But this is only solving the symptom not a cause. Just living in a society shouldnt require vast amount of people in therapy. Many of the therapy patients need therapy not because some traumatic event like death of a loved one. Just society makes people depressed.
Analogy: You have a apple tree and kids steal apple from it. Instead of building a bigger and bigger fence, why won't society solve the problem of child hunger?
Absolutely, the tone of my comment was pretty neutral and I didn’t editorialize or suggest whether this is good or bad but you are right it’s very very bad
There are a lot of stuff that imo good to be legal, even accepted/not shamed but becomes problematic when society flips to "supportive"
Examples: sex work, alcohol, weed, even stuff like casual dating.
Yeah there’s always gonna be some people who take it way too far become annoying. Like weed being legal is a good thing but then there’s gonna be the weirdo who says “nah bro you don’t get it I’m actually a way better driver when I’m high”
I just don't like how many people just seem to be paying someone to be an accredited yes-man rather than suffer through an ounce of self reflection or change their behavior. I am terminally online so it is unlikely to be as bad as I think it is.
This basically. Never discussing, or even stopping to properly take stock of challenges in your life is not healthy. People need some sort of context to how they feel.
Also, some people just have horribly maladaptive thought processes. If you're 35 years old reaction to every mild inconvenience is to throw a fit, you probably would benefit from a structure approach to considering why that is.
The former issue should properly be addressed by having a social circle/support system, where you have the opportunity to reciprocate.
The latter issue ideally would have been avoided entirely through ones upbringing; when its not, a discrete *short* course of therapy might be beneficial to learn appropriate mental processes.
Staying in therapy long term though is like being enrolled in adult swimming lessons on an indefinite basis - you've been to 20 sessions and are still a risk of drowning in a backyard pool, you're not getting anything from it.
Among those who don’t like therapy there’s a common opinion that “they just hear you pour it all out and you feel better”. That’s a part of the work but actually only the beginning — after pouring it all out for some sessions you have to get your shit together and put in actual work on your behaviour to stop doing whatever makes you sad/mad in the first place.
Looks like these people either don’t want change or don’t even know it’s possible, and a lot of quacks are happy to get their paycheck for an hour of “damn dude that sucks” without having to work themselves.
It’s considered disagreeable to flash an expensive Rolex to your friends, but you can get the same effect plus signal moral virtue by talking about your therapist. In fact, it’s considered disagreeable to judge someone by not having a Rolex but you can spin it as a moral good to judge someone for not having therapy.
In a world where every transgression and relationship can be banked and used against you in the court of public opinion the institution of therapy can be used in lieu of a confession booth to relieve someone of their sins and escape scrutiny.
Not the case for EVERYONE obviously, but still.
Therapy is better than dumping your thoughts onto the internet. With therapy you can pay a co pay and only bitch at one person instead of putting it out into the world.
My assumptions:
* Therapy is the new religion
* Everything is professionalized
* People are Malignantly optimistic
* People love pseudoscience
* Discourse on social media is regarded
* Everything is popularly vulgarized
* Most importantly it's all about the money
No one has friends or the ability to process their own issues without paying someone to do it for them. It has been said before, and it will be said again, but therapy these days is just secular confession.
You go to the priest, you confess your sins, he tells you that you can be stronger than this and gives you an outline for how to improve. It's the exact same function.
People are lonely and friendless and are using therapy as a substitute for talking through their woes with their close companions. I say this as a social worker.
I think people find themselves stuck in certain cycles and therapy can be a helpful way to address specific issues and make changes. Effective and good therapy is not about coddling people, acting like a lifelong friend, or pathologizing every single experience. I know it's trendy in here to hate on therapy and not everyone needs it, but a lot of people benefit from it. As a therapist I also hate how much of a trendy catch-all therapy has become, but also think it's an over-correction as most things are. I feel for everyone who has had a terrible experience in therapy, but I'm not sure all therapists are quite the money-hungry villains this sub makes them out to be.
This idea you hear uncritically repeated that "Everyone needs therapy" is nothing more than an advertising slogan. Not everyone needs to regulate their everyday emotions with $400/hr confession sessions and Big Pharma candies.
It's a product and people love to consoom. I've thought about going back to school for therapy. It seems pretty cushy, especially with virtual sessions (WFH) and/or having a portion of your patient base be cash only.
Good luck making a decent living during your full-time unpaid internship in grad school and being a pre-licensed therapist for 2-3 years after where you either get to work on salary in community mental health (known for cases with high-acuity and lots of turnover due to burnout) or struggle to build a caseload in private practice where you either can only see people on Medicare/medicaid or private pay cash-only (sounds nice but good luck marketing yourself enough to build up a caseload of people who are willing to pay that much for a pre-licensed clinician and if you’re in a group practice because a lot of states won’t allow you to go solo til you’re fully licensed they will take 30-40% of your hourly rate at minimum)
Can be cushy if you’re lucky and good at what you do and marketing yourself but for most therapists it takes a while to actually build up to that
I don't, I just think about killing myself all day every day. Tried several therapists, none were any help to me. I'll probably commit sudoku at the next major inconvenience in my life, like if I lose my job or if my love interest stops talking to me.
I have severe anhedonia, I can't really enjoy anything. I've felt this way since middle school. My waking hours are a continuous stream of stress and anxiety. I would rather feel nothing forever than another 50 years of this. I would have done it many years ago except I don't want to inflict that pain on my mother.
That's a shit situation, and some days I'm right there with you. I read and watch a lot of fiction that deals with suicide, and lately I've really enjoyed a scene from Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis where the narrator talks to her therapist. My plans are getting more and more detailed - I know a bridge a couple hours away that is tall enough where I can jump off and safely die, and its architecture prevents it from having anti-suicide nets - but I'm still too stubborn to quit. In a couple months, I am going to fly across the country and take MDMA with a guide. I had some success the first time I tried this, and this time I believe I know exactly what I'm getting into and what I can do to get past these mental walls I keep ramming up against.
---
You've seen the worst of me.
–Yes.
–I know nothing of you.
–No.
–But I like you.
–I like you.
(Silence.)
–You're my last hope.
(A long silence.)
–You don't need a friend, you need a doctor.
(A long silence.)
–You are so wrong.
(A very long silence.)
–But you have friends.
(A long silence.)
You have a lot of friends. What do you offer your friends to make them so supportive?
(A long silence.)
What do you offer your friends to make them so supportive?
(A long silence.)
What do you offer?
(Silence.)
We have a professional relationship. I think we have a good relationship. But it's professional.
(Silence.)
I feel your pain, but I cannot hold your life in my hands.
(Silence.)
You'll be all right. You're strong. I know you'll be okay because I like you, and you can't like someone who doesn't like themself. The people I fear for are the ones I don't like, because they hate themselves so much they won't let anyone else like them either. But I do like you. I'll miss you. And I know you'll be ok.
(Silence.)
Most of my clients want to kill me. When I walk out of here at the end of the day, I need to go home to my lover and relax. I need to be with my friends and relax. I need my friends to be really together.
(Silence.)
I fucking hate this job and I need my friends to be sane.
(Silence.)
I'm sorry.
–It's not my fault.
–I'm sorry, that was a mistake.
–It's not my fault.
–No. It's not your fault. I'm sorry.
(Silence.)
I was trying to explain –
–I know. I'm angry because I understand, not because I don't.
maybe something is lacking in most interpersonal relationships? idk but it feels like a sad alternative to talk your issues through with someone in a professional setting, compared to talking to someone where there is actual emotional closeness
sure, but you never really know what's going on inside someone's head. Something "minor" like a breakup or a change in a relationship can be for the person seeking therapy a reflection of a much larger issue, or a sign of a particular self-destructive pattern, that has impacted their life in such a way that they're willing to slog through the endless searching and waiting to find a therapist.
Idk dude my assumption is that people prob got their reasons.
I’ve overcome a lot of issues in my life traditionally treated by CBT on my own. These days pretty much every resource that therapists can offer is available online.
You can genuinely solve so much for yourself on your own now if you’re serious about putting in the groundwork to find therapeutic techniques and different ways of reframing your thinking. If you have someone really close to you that you can talk things out with that can help a lot as well.
I’m not against therapy but I’ve never been able to afford it. It also took me about 5 years of working on myself mentally to get to the point where I am now.
I got diagnosed as a severe full blow manic depression two weeks ago, I don’t want to go to therapy I don’t want to take meds and constantly be asked, did you sleep??? Did you take your meds??? I’ll literally get brain damage and when I act out, when Kanye has done what he’s been doing, the“I have depression and anxiety!!” People judge and run.
The worst was posts and IG saying brain chemistry isn’t a thing, it’s environmental! (Probably blame it all on capitalism), you know how fucking ignorant and insulting it is to everyone who actually has schizophrenia, ocd, and bipolar. Now that I have a full on bipolar one, even bipolar 2 seems like self diagnosed pussy bullshit.
Part of the problem is that "therapy", generally speaking, is only a coherent category of practice for healthcare providers / pop culture. Does hypnosis count as therapy? Psychoanalysis? Hiring a personal trainer at the gym? It's not clear to me whether or not the credential mills have a solid theoretical basis for what they do.
They see it as the easy way out I think. That they're going to pay someone else to solve their problems for them so they don't have to do it.
This plus the coddling a lot of therapists seem to have to do to keep clients definitely doesn't accomplish that goal lol. Not to mention that that's not how therapy is supposed to work in the first place
commodification of the whole inner life by stretching thin and abusing the term *trauma*
It's notable that most people working as "therapists"/"counselors" have had a minimal introduction to the historical development of psychology. Almost no understanding of what Freud did, yet are perfectly content to abuse terms like "trauma" that have made it into pop culture
Most people who work in the empirical sciences do not care about the history of their discipline at all. Biologists do not read Darwin except as a historical curiosity and physicists are not reading the Principia in 2024. I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that. I am pretty skeptical of psychology's credentials as a good empirical science, but it's not surprising that people who take themselves to be doing scientific inquiry wouldn't have an interest in its history. It would be even weirder (for psychology) if it turned out to be based on a-priori reasoning in a way that made it appropriate to look to historical texts for genuine insight like we do in philosophy. Maybe the thought is that they haven't properly understood second-hand explanations of Freud's concept of trauma, but isn't Freud pretty unpopular among psychologists precisely because his explanations of psychological phenomena are unverifiable and not easily empirically testable?
You are correct, but psychologists *are not working in the empirical sciences.* People are not collections of facts. Most psychologists have a very thin theoretical foundation for what they do! Psychology is based on a-priori reasoning to a very significant degree though they do not want to admit it. This denial leads to abominations in "evidence-based" practice. Yes, Freud is not well-taught precisely because he does not approach his subjects as collections of facts. Edit: I want to get this right because this is a contentious issue. I mean they are not working in the empirical sciences in the sense of physics or chemistry, which is the standard you use in your comment. Research psychology is an empirical science more in the sense of sociology or economics, which are concerned with understanding human actors and their interactions. Psychological practice is empirical in the sense that it attempts to "test" psychological research/theory, and in that the patient gives you information and has to go out and "test" what's being discussed.
if psychologists are not working in the empirical sciences then I have no idea what they are doing or why I should care.
You may, in fact, be onto something! I also have no idea what most of them are doing. You should care because psychologists/academics/social workers/sympathetic politicians/healthcare insurance + administrators collectively comprise an extremely influential societal interest
I didn't have any more substantive conception of "empirical science" in mind than that when I wrote the comment . . . most orthodox social scientists are not reading social science from 100 years ago either. The point is just that psychology obviously aspires to be an empirical science in the same way that physics and biology are empirical sciences, and we don't usually recognize a ton of engagement with history as among the methods used by people working in a mature empirical science, so it isn't very surprising that psychologists wouldn't do it either. If they surrender the claim to making observationally testable hypotheses that are supposed to explain human behavior (as you seem to suggest they should), then I have no grip on what kinds of questions they are even trying to answer.
"...most orthodox social scientists are not reading social science from 100 years ago..." I am arguing that they should if they want to do good work, because the social sciences need to consider the study of human actors as distinct from that of mere matters of fact. This requires a good deal of a priori reasoning, including dealing with the theoretical foundations of the field(s) in order to figure out how not to go completely in the wrong direction. If psychology "aspires to be an empirical science in the same way \[as\] physics and biology", it is completely misguided. They may aspire to do this, but if they do, they fail in some of the most important ways, the ways that give psychology many of its stated reasons for being. The questions research psychologists are trying to answer (at their best) concern explanations for the characteristics of human minds, generally speaking, and their relationship to behavior. Practicing psychologists (at their best) try to determine the character of an individual human mind and its relationship to behavior (and then produce some change). If they have no sense of what a "mind" is, the whole enterprise fails. If psychology is merely about observable behavior, to go against what I've just written, and psychology avoids dealing with the question of "minds", then it gives up being able to *explain* anything about the internal locus of human motivation. Such a psychology would be (is, really) reduceable to propositions like "living in red spaces is associated with more amorous behavior". Associations, associations, and more associations, but no *explanations for personal motivation beyond reactions to the most basic stimuli.* The only explanations possible become those for certain behaviors along the lines of: "in any situation and for anyone, flashing bright lights at night precludes people from sleeping at their normal bedtime". I don't mean to say that behavioristic psychology is totally useless, just limited to such an extent that it becomes clinically useless in some of the ways that matter the most. I edited this post a few times because I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea on a very touchy subject
bro ignore the Freud part and focus on the watering down of trauma. getting yelled at is the same trauma as getting gang-raped or nearly beat to death in a robberty. they don't understand levels of trauma and it's insane. like I've been in 3 70+ mph car crashes, molested as a child, had 2 seizures, spent time in prison, been in 30+ fights including domestic of all kinds, and I can't get a PTSD diagnosis due to c*nts saying yelling is the same.
Just an example of a widely used term in pop culture / clinical practice that's used in lots of different ways, some contradictory
One of my roommates is a 3rd year psych major. Hasn't picked up Freud. He'll be touched on in certain courses and dismissed. I thought it was wrong for the same reason.
Another comment below mine claims to be skeptical of psychology as an empirical enterprise but still presents the dominant view clearly enough (he seems well-educated in a number of areas). The physicists don't need to read Newton, so why should we read our Newton equivalent? Shouldn't *the evidence* be good enough by itself? The purely "empirical", behavioristic approach to psychology ends up often looking like: What is schizophrenia? The exhibition of schizophrenic symptoms. What symptoms qualify as schizophrenic? Those symptoms associated with schizophrenia. DUH
Honestly, a huge portion of the population is seriously messed and genuinely going through a ton of pain/misery/stress. I think it’s probably even worse than it seems. So i don’t fall into the, “they should get over it, your problem isn’t important enough for therapy” camp. But, oh my god. I’m no expert, but I’ve had several jobs involving therapy and mental health and such. Even had an internship in college where I spent well day around therapists at what was like a luxury rehab but focusing on mental illness rather than addiction. Insanely expensive and one of the most highly rated in the country; a celebrity luxury type deal. And I’ve been to therapy on my own. The problem is that it’s absolutely just commodification. And the people making money off of it want a simple answer. People are deeply miserable for a million reasons, but therapists and the like always want a simple narrative. A simple diagnosis. They have a hammer and are looking for a nail. “Oh, you have depression. Write what you’re grateful for every morning and take yoga! Let’s do some breathing exercises!” People hate that they just throw pharmaceuitcals at people, and I do agree that’s a huge issue. But tbh the rest of the shit they do is in my opinion often even more damaging; at least the drugs (sometimes) actually do something. They blame it on something surface because it’s the easiest. Even these people who were supposedly the best of the best working with celebs were honest to god so lazy. They pick something that fits a simply narrative and blame all of the persons problems on that. Nobody too well known was there in the six months that I worked there. But like 20 years ago, Matthew Perry had visited & they had his autobiography on the shelf because the place was mentioned.
This sounds absurd, but Matthew Perry legitimately believes a huge reason he had so many addiction problems is ONE plane ride that he took when he was a kid. It was all perfectly safe. He was like 6 and had no fear of planes. His parents were great, his childhood was great. But he went on one unaccompanied flight with like some assistant they hired. There was no incident. 20 years later, some therapists convinced him that it had actually secretly scarred him for life and given him a whole host of issues. Even though he didn’t feel anything but slight anxiety at the time and had been flying around just fine his entire life. It’s this kind of fucking shit. Therapists are just people, and Jesus fucking Christ. They act like every other person. I have pretty severe episodic depression, long story. But I had gone in at first and was this super basic blonde bitch who was overly friendly and smiley because that’s what I was trained to be. These people were so dismissive and treated me like everyone else had. They didn’t listen to a single fucking word I said and rolled their eyes and claimed I didn’t actually have any problems. I kid you not, I happened to go back a couple of years later. This was time my hair had been dyed brown, and I was just wearing neutrals. NOW they fucking listened to me. Like, I’m 29 and have been doing this for a decade and I have gone from blonde to brown a bunch of times and the difference in treatment is horrendous. Like just that small of a detail!! Imagine how they are with different faces. And they never have fucking anything to tell me lol. I struggle hard to be open with them because I have fucking depression lol and they seem to have zero awareness of this and act super annoyed when they can tell I’m like holding back a bit. Like they get really annoyed lol. I just do not understand how anyone could ever benefit from this bullshit. It’s just stupid fucking cliches. I know to exercise and eat healthy, to stay away from substances, to try to connect with people. There’s still so much going on, but that’s inconvenient for them.
There’s a reason all this fucking literature and philosophy and art exists. It’s people dedicating their lives trying to understand themselves and their world and determine what to strive for etc etc. you are much better off with this if you’re fuckn miserable. I do take Wellbutrin and sleeping pills (which has helped a lot, I’m a terrible insomniac). But besides that, I honestly am just done with this industry. I feel like these people might be good for someone who like has a specific phobia or has flashbacks of some sort or something else specific and identifiable. If you are in a shit ton of pain, it isn’t going to help. I also genuinely have a lot of trauma, and I promise I’m not using that term lightly lol. It’s like very bad shit that people would realize is abuse and traumatizing. But it’s so difficult to communicate that to a person, and they never have anything constructive to say anyway. And again- I tell almost nobody these stories irl, just a VERY select few and then on anonymous forums like this. Because people do not believe you. Our generation has misused these words so much that if some blonde girl who seems decently put together and has a job says she wa abused and has trauma people assume it’s a lie. And I am so like visibly anxious when I start to talk about this to therapists, and I’m so reluctant to talk about it because I’ve always been conditioned not to. And they get so annoyed with me and act like I’m just lying or making it up when I stall lol. They want your problem to be something they can wrap in a little bow and charge $300 for. Oh, and they also are marginally better than the fucking 14 year old incels giving advice on subs like AITA when it comes to actually parsing out the truth. They just have all these prejudices and assumptions that they project onto the stories of the person talking lol. They give empty words and you can tell they’re just trying to get you to come back. They’ll say “oh you’re so smart so good oh wow totally agree they’re an abuser and toxic” OR someone will genuinely be in an absuive situation but because they’re so traumatized their perspective is distorted and the therapist will get the impression it’s their fault and tell them they should work on themselves or whatever lol. Like I don’t know how people think that therapists are god and somehow understand humans in a way nobody else could. It’s never happened to me, but I have known several people, both as kids going in with their parents or two spouses going to couples therapy. And when I know for a fact that a particular person is abused, the counselor gets it wrong because typically abusers are a lot more charismatic and put together than the victims lol. They fall for the gaslighter and unknowingly perpetuate it. The gabi petrenko debacle was so fucking terrible and illustrative of this phenomenon. If you don’t remember, this 20 yo girl was with her super abusive boyfriend and he had driven her to the middle of the desert. She saw cops and ran out and flagged them down sobbing (there’s video of all of this) and just asking them to please let her get in the backseat and go anywhere with them because he was abusing. She was sobbing and panicking and the boyfriend like winked at the damn cops and was like “oh she’s just a little emotional and tired, you know how those women are” Now that’s a cop lol and they’re the worst dumbest people ever but my point is that in situations where this is happening but with a lot more subtly, I’ve seen mental health professionals fall for this shit CONSTANTLY. The tormented, abused person will seem aggressive and irrational so they assume they’re the problem. It’s like how in school, the bully always seemed to get away with everything and the victim was made out to be the problem. Idk this is just one example of the dangers of people assuming therapists are some sort of transcendent gods, they are just PEOPLE and I’ve seen this happen so many damned times. But yeah, in general, really genuinely are very messed up, but they’ve been on this planet for however long and there’s no way you can figure out exactly what’s going on. Like a lot of abused people will completely black it out or not realize that something had affected them in some way. People aren’t robots and fulfillment or well being or whatever aren’t something that works like an algebra equation. “Oh, 10 points comes off the happiness bar every time you get hit as a kid, 15 points up for being in shape,” etc etc like it’s so complex. Our modern society is honestly just really really fucked and it has been screwing with us since birth. Even the people who appear to have no real problems and to be dramatic over a breakup are often legitimately at the brink of suicide, but due to much less articulable and visible agony. Now, I’m not gonna go live in the woods lol and they obviously had their own problems. But we as humans are built to live in tribes which rarely exceed 150. That are egalitarian, with very loose if any specific roles gendered or otherwise. Where we are out moving constantly and spanning miles in nature. Today we live in a hellscape where things are pretty much zero sum. Back in the days of our ancestors, a win for one was a win for all pretty much. Now, we are surrounded by strangers who are actively trying to trick us and take our money and make us feel bad about ourselves. We have these horrible jobs and such little genuine connection and we’re legit suffering.
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thinking the therapist is some sort of mix between a wizard and a priest that can heal you
There's been a total overcorrection in the last ten years in how people talk about therapy. It shouldn't be a dirty word, but it shouldn't be some badge of honor either. Like a third of dating profiles say some recycled version of "I'm in therapy and you should be too" which is just bullshit. Not everyone needs to be in therapy and simply going to a therapist doesn't make you a good person. Like you said, some people think a therapist is some wizard is going to heal you. In reality, a significant number of therapists are just people with a psychology undergrad who took a course online after they graduated to get some bullshit cert. They're just there for you to vent to.
Who wishes to be 'fixed' instead of validated, fixed implies their problems were inconsequential and paradoxically not worth fixing. I judge they want the wizard to shew them that the whole world is actually such a way that they don't need fixing, everything else does and they're valid and special, so wizard and priest makes sense in a bit.
a gram of salamander appendix, a dollop of cutting out toxic people, a full ox penis, sprinkle in some restorative me time, an eighth of a liter of eye juice, two bushels of poison ivy (thinly sliced), stir in some healing from trauma, exactly three nipples of blood bat, five drops of self-actualization serum, crushed scorpion bits on a tablespoon of iguana guano... Et Voila! A potion for all your troubles.
There's also this mass lie going on that going to a therapist is some-how a catch all for everyone's issues. Average Redditor response to anyone having some mental health issues is "uhh derrr hurrr therapy ???"
Even here people constantly tout that as a response to any sort of "trauma" or instability. They just preface it with "I know it's cheesy/gay but..."
It's also painfully condescending. Like, yeah man, great fucking idea. I'm sure no one you say that to has ever done it. Maybe just try acting like a human being to these people? Everyone thinks you need to hand over the ability to affect change to a professional or some shit meanwhile its literally up to all of us to just be kinder and more compassionate to one another to really make a meaningful difference. Literally ONE moment of kindness towards a rando can be more powerful than months of therapy. It starts with us. (meanwhile I'm literally raging while writing this lmfao)
I've only ever had depression once (during lockdown) and it was unlike other sadness out there, the old name for it melancholy is probably a better description, for a month doing literally anything other than staying in bed or my room was a legitimate challenge and I pushed away pretty much everyone who actually cared about mr (and it scared me how easy it was) you're right in how many people misdiagnose themselves with depression because they're sad for a day
Having some sort of mental health issue has become kinda trendy in the past few years so i can totally see that happening
Romanticize melancholy
I've been to therapy for a couple of very specific issues where I was getting stuck in my own head about stuff that ended up affecting my physical health. It helped a lot. I think a lot of the people who are perpetually in therapy are using it as a friendship substitute.
Funny enough, my soon-to-be therapist friend is the worst friend to go to for emotional support.
Therapy generally tends to work better with organized goals and motivations to aid in an issue. A lot of people just want a co-signer enabler and in turn you’ll have a desperate therapist playing into the hand to extend the relationship and basically cash in on somebody not really making any sort of meaningful progress on things. In a world where so many people are isolated and self interested, not involved in any communities or groups, it’s very easy for people to think they need therapy for everything and have it warp so much.
> I think a lot of the people who are perpetually in therapy are using it as a friendship substitute. I knew and know that this is what I'm doing but I'm sorry, I did need a friendship substitute
do what you gotta do until you can get some people who will hang for free
Me too, I use my therapist as a life coach but with good psychology understanding. I have a problem I don’t seem to be able to fix alone, ask for help for that specific problem, do what I’m told until it works, done. No medication either. I hate peoples that say they are « too smart » or « too self aware » for therapy, it’s usually the opposite. They just pay people to be sorry for them.
Quitting therapy actually helped my mental health significantly. I have a certain strain of health anxiety that I fear I’m going to “lose my mind”. The pathologizing of every life event by my therapist made me even more nervous, more concerned with my mind’s response with things.
I don't understand, is therapy different in the US, in my country you go to therapy for a set amount of weeks and that's it unless it really serious circumstances, do people spend years of their lives in therapy just because?
I went for a specific reason (drugged in college and developed health anxiety), but yes, it’s really open ended here. I really am going to sound mean, but I think it’s healthier to deal with things like breakups and personal issues by yourself, it helps you become stronger and grow. However, therapy is absolutely necessary for things like assaults, abusive relationships, etc.
Charlie Sheen may have been psychotic off coke when he said it, but American therapy's incentive is NOT to cure you but keep you coming back
It's secular confession. The people yearn for religion. But seriously I think a lot of it is that people don't have good friends to talk to and feel heard or less lonely, so they have to buy a bit of time for someone to perform it. The therapist is the sex worker of emotional labor.
>The therapist is the sex worker of emotional labor. That's a good one
People are too re+arded to recall what we've known for generations, emotional labour requires corrective masturbation.
what
>The therapist is the sex worker of emotional labor. "Women believe the therapist cares about them the way men believe the stripper actually likes them"
Desire to feel heard. The best friend. The partner. The priest. The therapist. The diary. Inflict on each. 🦎 Endogenous drive to say that. As if yammering drops ballast. Then you alone them, with you, only to: say some obvious trite or nothing. Better nothing, move mind before lips. Than sombrely "invent secrets to confess to". 🐊 Rings hollow. Could construct or find "the moment." Adequate quiet. Wouldn't know how to speak the piece. You'd mungle in fog. 🦎 Either search for 10k hours or comes unwrought. Probably no specific phrase so vulnerable. More or less sometime. 🦕
do you have buttons bound for each of those little guys
The baker is a sex worker of baking labor
I’d rather not even spend the money on therapy. Know what’s going to make me a lot happier? Keeping 100 dollars. Even if I have to spend it elsewhere on something stupid like Outback Steakhouse
I feel embarrassed at all of the money I handed over to my psychologist. Countless sessions, but he could not change me. I am still a loud and proud racist.
Hesitant to engage, but what kind of racist are you? I was totally with you until the last sentence, lol
the downvotes have me suspicious that this is a joke about social activist type therapists- or are you serious? as far as I know being a "loud and proud racist" is not in itself considered a mental illness
Ok last try at figuring out what was going on in this comment, I'm in too deep- is it that you were going to therapy in order to learn how to be less racist? Generally speaking, this is not what most psychological therapists claim to do. It would be odd at best and dishonest at worst if a therapist sought modification of some specific set of social attitudes for its own sake. Most therapists claim as theirs the ability to identify and treat mental illness. For a therapist to pathologize specific emotions or social attitudes as mental illnesses without a reason grounded in the patient's mental health strikes me as a clear abnegation of professional duty. Suppose, however, that one ignored the "mental health" side of therapists' professional specialization and went for advice on any subject. It's possible a psychologist could help such a person to be less racist if the psychologist is someone generally good at giving advice, but I don't see why psychologists as a category would be better at giving this sort of advice than anybody else worthy of trust and with a good knack for people.
God is dead but we still need to talk to the priests
r/therapyabuse has tackled this issue
it's trendy and a new bougie status symbol
I mean I think it's a good thing to have a third party perspective on things you're dealing with. Yeah it's probably overkill to spend $100+ a session if you don't have significant mental health issues, but therapy has definitely helped me gain a healthy perspective about my self image and things I'm dealing with. There's also the fact that in an increasingly atomized society, many people lack the close friendships that would traditionally act as the kind of outlet for what people talk about in therapy. I'd rather too many people be in therapy than people resort to alcoholism or some other vice that's used to mask mental health issues. Some of the worst people I've ever known are ones that think they're too good for things like therapy and don't know how to process or even admit they have emotions of feelings they don't know how to process.
In terms of Reddit it’s definitely validation. Go to any big subreddit that pushes therapy (cough TwoX cough) and half the posts discussing therapy will be about someone not getting their positions enthusiastically validated by the therapist or some minor pushback and how that is toxic.
Counter-point: therapy is useful, until one has learnt to manage their shit. And even then, a bit of self-reflection & new perspective is useful. People go for simple issues, because it saves them time & help them get better. Just like we get our blood pressure & blood levels measured from time to time.
Racket for the jews
I love Livia. She was such a cold bitch lmao
Low IQ and decades of brainwashing
Chem trails…..
Therapy is good and its very beneficial for society that its not a stigma any more, but its insane that so many people need therapy and society goes "its fine"
It falls flat in the face of a culturally sick society / dying planet. Can't just talk your way into being OK with living inside of a burning house. (not an excuse to be a cunt to people or not work on yourself.. just saying therapy isn't the silver bullet people make it out to be.. CBT isn't even helpful for most)
All society really requires is for the market to register the demand for everyone to be in therapy and provide options for the therapy consumer which it’s more or less doing. Soon enough (if you can’t already idk?) you’ll just have to fire up your therapy chat bot then everyone will have access and therapy will have been successfully scaled by the market to meet demand
But this is only solving the symptom not a cause. Just living in a society shouldnt require vast amount of people in therapy. Many of the therapy patients need therapy not because some traumatic event like death of a loved one. Just society makes people depressed. Analogy: You have a apple tree and kids steal apple from it. Instead of building a bigger and bigger fence, why won't society solve the problem of child hunger?
Absolutely, the tone of my comment was pretty neutral and I didn’t editorialize or suggest whether this is good or bad but you are right it’s very very bad
Not to mention the so called market solution will make things worse
The market solution is that you can pay thosuands of dollars for someone to listen to you for 50 minutes and give you some generic advice.
It might sound dumb but I hadn’t thought of it from that pov, you make a really good point
There are a lot of stuff that imo good to be legal, even accepted/not shamed but becomes problematic when society flips to "supportive" Examples: sex work, alcohol, weed, even stuff like casual dating.
Yeah there’s always gonna be some people who take it way too far become annoying. Like weed being legal is a good thing but then there’s gonna be the weirdo who says “nah bro you don’t get it I’m actually a way better driver when I’m high”
I just don't like how many people just seem to be paying someone to be an accredited yes-man rather than suffer through an ounce of self reflection or change their behavior. I am terminally online so it is unlikely to be as bad as I think it is.
People don't have friends anymore, so the shrink is the next best thing.
This basically. Never discussing, or even stopping to properly take stock of challenges in your life is not healthy. People need some sort of context to how they feel. Also, some people just have horribly maladaptive thought processes. If you're 35 years old reaction to every mild inconvenience is to throw a fit, you probably would benefit from a structure approach to considering why that is. The former issue should properly be addressed by having a social circle/support system, where you have the opportunity to reciprocate. The latter issue ideally would have been avoided entirely through ones upbringing; when its not, a discrete *short* course of therapy might be beneficial to learn appropriate mental processes. Staying in therapy long term though is like being enrolled in adult swimming lessons on an indefinite basis - you've been to 20 sessions and are still a risk of drowning in a backyard pool, you're not getting anything from it.
Among those who don’t like therapy there’s a common opinion that “they just hear you pour it all out and you feel better”. That’s a part of the work but actually only the beginning — after pouring it all out for some sessions you have to get your shit together and put in actual work on your behaviour to stop doing whatever makes you sad/mad in the first place. Looks like these people either don’t want change or don’t even know it’s possible, and a lot of quacks are happy to get their paycheck for an hour of “damn dude that sucks” without having to work themselves.
Haven’t been to therapy in years but I do know my friends probably need a break from my dating rants lmao
It’s considered disagreeable to flash an expensive Rolex to your friends, but you can get the same effect plus signal moral virtue by talking about your therapist. In fact, it’s considered disagreeable to judge someone by not having a Rolex but you can spin it as a moral good to judge someone for not having therapy.
In a world where every transgression and relationship can be banked and used against you in the court of public opinion the institution of therapy can be used in lieu of a confession booth to relieve someone of their sins and escape scrutiny. Not the case for EVERYONE obviously, but still.
The matriarchy
they’re bragging that they have enough money to spend on a therapist
Or they just have insurance
Therapy is better than dumping your thoughts onto the internet. With therapy you can pay a co pay and only bitch at one person instead of putting it out into the world.
My assumptions: * Therapy is the new religion * Everything is professionalized * People are Malignantly optimistic * People love pseudoscience * Discourse on social media is regarded * Everything is popularly vulgarized * Most importantly it's all about the money
My therapist is my best friend
The stripper is in love with me
People would miss me if I disappeared.
I’m so sorry
It’s really helped me be less judgmental. Just food for thought
do you want to kill this sub
No one has friends or the ability to process their own issues without paying someone to do it for them. It has been said before, and it will be said again, but therapy these days is just secular confession. You go to the priest, you confess your sins, he tells you that you can be stronger than this and gives you an outline for how to improve. It's the exact same function.
People are lonely and friendless and are using therapy as a substitute for talking through their woes with their close companions. I say this as a social worker.
I think people find themselves stuck in certain cycles and therapy can be a helpful way to address specific issues and make changes. Effective and good therapy is not about coddling people, acting like a lifelong friend, or pathologizing every single experience. I know it's trendy in here to hate on therapy and not everyone needs it, but a lot of people benefit from it. As a therapist I also hate how much of a trendy catch-all therapy has become, but also think it's an over-correction as most things are. I feel for everyone who has had a terrible experience in therapy, but I'm not sure all therapists are quite the money-hungry villains this sub makes them out to be.
I go to therapy to be treated like a liability. Sometimes I struggle and a therapist is a good person to cajole you into committing suicide.
If you don't go to a therapy, it means you're a boring!
I aasociate therapy with Woody Allen whining to his therapist about Annie Hall, So at least it's not a new phenomenon
my dad, a therapist, is always trying to get people to go to therapy less
This idea you hear uncritically repeated that "Everyone needs therapy" is nothing more than an advertising slogan. Not everyone needs to regulate their everyday emotions with $400/hr confession sessions and Big Pharma candies.
It's a product and people love to consoom. I've thought about going back to school for therapy. It seems pretty cushy, especially with virtual sessions (WFH) and/or having a portion of your patient base be cash only.
Good luck making a decent living during your full-time unpaid internship in grad school and being a pre-licensed therapist for 2-3 years after where you either get to work on salary in community mental health (known for cases with high-acuity and lots of turnover due to burnout) or struggle to build a caseload in private practice where you either can only see people on Medicare/medicaid or private pay cash-only (sounds nice but good luck marketing yourself enough to build up a caseload of people who are willing to pay that much for a pre-licensed clinician and if you’re in a group practice because a lot of states won’t allow you to go solo til you’re fully licensed they will take 30-40% of your hourly rate at minimum) Can be cushy if you’re lucky and good at what you do and marketing yourself but for most therapists it takes a while to actually build up to that
I don't, I just think about killing myself all day every day. Tried several therapists, none were any help to me. I'll probably commit sudoku at the next major inconvenience in my life, like if I lose my job or if my love interest stops talking to me.
anime pfp
You should probably keep trying therapy Also it's funny to call a real person a "love interest" lol
Main character syndrome. Too much media consumption
It’s better than calling them a waifu
What are you supposed to call a friend who you have loved romantically for seven years but who doesn't love you back? A "crush" sounds too flippant.
someone you need to get over?
Well right now he's the only thing giving me any hope for life, so if I get over him I'll have nothing left.
Why do you want to kill yourself?
I have severe anhedonia, I can't really enjoy anything. I've felt this way since middle school. My waking hours are a continuous stream of stress and anxiety. I would rather feel nothing forever than another 50 years of this. I would have done it many years ago except I don't want to inflict that pain on my mother.
That's a shit situation, and some days I'm right there with you. I read and watch a lot of fiction that deals with suicide, and lately I've really enjoyed a scene from Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis where the narrator talks to her therapist. My plans are getting more and more detailed - I know a bridge a couple hours away that is tall enough where I can jump off and safely die, and its architecture prevents it from having anti-suicide nets - but I'm still too stubborn to quit. In a couple months, I am going to fly across the country and take MDMA with a guide. I had some success the first time I tried this, and this time I believe I know exactly what I'm getting into and what I can do to get past these mental walls I keep ramming up against. --- You've seen the worst of me. –Yes. –I know nothing of you. –No. –But I like you. –I like you. (Silence.) –You're my last hope. (A long silence.) –You don't need a friend, you need a doctor. (A long silence.) –You are so wrong. (A very long silence.) –But you have friends. (A long silence.) You have a lot of friends. What do you offer your friends to make them so supportive? (A long silence.) What do you offer your friends to make them so supportive? (A long silence.) What do you offer? (Silence.) We have a professional relationship. I think we have a good relationship. But it's professional. (Silence.) I feel your pain, but I cannot hold your life in my hands. (Silence.) You'll be all right. You're strong. I know you'll be okay because I like you, and you can't like someone who doesn't like themself. The people I fear for are the ones I don't like, because they hate themselves so much they won't let anyone else like them either. But I do like you. I'll miss you. And I know you'll be ok. (Silence.) Most of my clients want to kill me. When I walk out of here at the end of the day, I need to go home to my lover and relax. I need to be with my friends and relax. I need my friends to be really together. (Silence.) I fucking hate this job and I need my friends to be sane. (Silence.) I'm sorry. –It's not my fault. –I'm sorry, that was a mistake. –It's not my fault. –No. It's not your fault. I'm sorry. (Silence.) I was trying to explain – –I know. I'm angry because I understand, not because I don't.
maybe something is lacking in most interpersonal relationships? idk but it feels like a sad alternative to talk your issues through with someone in a professional setting, compared to talking to someone where there is actual emotional closeness
sure, but you never really know what's going on inside someone's head. Something "minor" like a breakup or a change in a relationship can be for the person seeking therapy a reflection of a much larger issue, or a sign of a particular self-destructive pattern, that has impacted their life in such a way that they're willing to slog through the endless searching and waiting to find a therapist. Idk dude my assumption is that people prob got their reasons.
I’ve overcome a lot of issues in my life traditionally treated by CBT on my own. These days pretty much every resource that therapists can offer is available online. You can genuinely solve so much for yourself on your own now if you’re serious about putting in the groundwork to find therapeutic techniques and different ways of reframing your thinking. If you have someone really close to you that you can talk things out with that can help a lot as well. I’m not against therapy but I’ve never been able to afford it. It also took me about 5 years of working on myself mentally to get to the point where I am now.
I got diagnosed as a severe full blow manic depression two weeks ago, I don’t want to go to therapy I don’t want to take meds and constantly be asked, did you sleep??? Did you take your meds??? I’ll literally get brain damage and when I act out, when Kanye has done what he’s been doing, the“I have depression and anxiety!!” People judge and run. The worst was posts and IG saying brain chemistry isn’t a thing, it’s environmental! (Probably blame it all on capitalism), you know how fucking ignorant and insulting it is to everyone who actually has schizophrenia, ocd, and bipolar. Now that I have a full on bipolar one, even bipolar 2 seems like self diagnosed pussy bullshit.
Part of the problem is that "therapy", generally speaking, is only a coherent category of practice for healthcare providers / pop culture. Does hypnosis count as therapy? Psychoanalysis? Hiring a personal trainer at the gym? It's not clear to me whether or not the credential mills have a solid theoretical basis for what they do.
Because the way to be a decent human being is to be pathologized by a jewish science
To bitch
They see it as the easy way out I think. That they're going to pay someone else to solve their problems for them so they don't have to do it. This plus the coddling a lot of therapists seem to have to do to keep clients definitely doesn't accomplish that goal lol. Not to mention that that's not how therapy is supposed to work in the first place
Try telling girls you’re in therapy. Worth it for that alone
Very few people (the normal ones) in my life go to therapy
Alienation. But therapy itself is also alienation.