A book review: Bad Therapy – Why the Kid’s Aren’t Growing Up, by Abigail Shrier
Anyone who knows me might be wondering why I even bought this book given I’m not a parent or teacher. My interest doesn’t sit in either of those camps. I don’t envy parents today, although I do sometimes feel sad that it’s something I will never get to experience. It’s the biggest undertaking any adult could ever enter into, although you wouldn’t know it in many parts of society where the immense responsibility has been systematically reduced. I suppose the same could be said for the teaching profession, overworked and underpaid and at the behest of government bureaucrats and budgets who don't so much want all children to think for themselves, but rather to be told what to think and only those with a good memory will pass the testing years of school time.
I bought this book because of my own experience and my observations of the toxicity of the overuse and mass marketization of ‘t****a’. I attended a course in summer 2023 about ‘Working with T****a’ and I was left humbled by the stories of shameful suffering happening in my own country. Despite my challenges, I was lucky to have had the upbringing I did. I never had to lie in my bed with my shoes on in case my mum needed to escape from an abusive husband, and I wasn’t traipsing around my city wearing cheap lingerie under a fur coat, picking up old men because I’d been sexually abused my every man in my family. I bought this book because I am interested in widening the lens to a societal viewpoint and what the solutions may be.
I first listened to Abigail Shrier on the Joe Rogan podcast and was on board with her immediately. Then I watched her with Jordan Peterson and also on the Unherd YouTube channel. She was confirming many of the concerns I was having.
I’m in Scotland, and the research for the book is US-based. I’m not even certain that the same level of therapy-pushing culture, or medication has made it across the pond. It’s written from a middle class viewpoint, aimed at the 2.4 family, ‘afraid’ of saying no or being the authority in their teenager’s life thus rendering their offspring delicate and unable to cope without intervention. Shrier's concerns extend to the sweeping generalisations of ‘trauma informed’ educational establishments. She believes there is an assumption that every child is affected, and schools appear to be dealing with ‘difficult’ behaviour with kid gloves and the removal of appropriate discipline and respect for others and the teachers. From what I have heard, this is also a challenge on this side of the pond too.
She starts with a caveat. This isn’t about the kids who are suffering ‘profound mental illness. Disorders that, at their untreated worst, preclude productive work or stable relationships and exile the afflicted from the locus of normal life. Theirs is a crisis of neglect and under treatment. These precious kids require medication and the care of psychiatrists. They are not the subject of this book.’
She goes on to explain that this book is for, ‘the second cohort: the worriers; the fearful; the lonely; the lost, and sad. College kids who can’t apply for a job without three or ten calls to mom.’ The book focuses on the alleged middle class parenting solution of referring teens to therapy and the US pharma addiction for ‘made up’ problems.
Bad Therapy kicks off with a golden nugget of information about the correct term for the unintended consequences of trying to help – making things worse rather than better. Iatrogenesis – the opening chapter. According to Shrier, many therapists are unwilling to even admit their help could be a hindrance or even detrimental. Those lengthy lists of potential side effects inside the box of pills or warnings from the physician about a course of medication simply don’t exist in the world of therapy. Everything is good, nothing is bad. ‘Psychotherapy needs a warning label’, Shrier argues.
Is my experience the exception or the norm in the therapy world?
When I decided to get to the bottom of my unreliable ‘picker’ and chequered love life, I went to a counselor, not a psychotherapist. I was advised to buy a book about ‘Inner Child’ work, and to have a conversation with my mum about my absent father. I talked for 6 or 8 hours to her (I can’t recall how many sessions we had), and at my last session, I was metaphorically patted on the back on the way out the door, and told ‘now go and get on with your life.’ Sage advice, and at 41, I wish it could have been that easy. I went to her with a specific problem and she never helped me. She may well be the perfect counselor for Shrier’s cohort. Instead of seeking a more appropriate therapist, I went down the ‘DIY’ route. Big mistake, made possible by the ease of access to information but not necessarily the right kind.
‘Well-meaning therapists often act as though talking through your problems with a professional is good for everyone. That isn’t so. Nor is the case that as long as the therapist is following protocols, and has good intentions, the patient is bound to get better.’ I agree with her reasoning that Bad Therapy is potentially ruining lives for young people who don’t need it, and conversely could be destroying the lives of those who do because they aren’t getting the help they need. The ecosystem is flawed and Shrier is calling it out.
As I was reading Chapter 1, I couldn’t help but think about how I would cast the iatrogenesis net wider to catch the social media accounts of the online ‘t****a’ pushers. The social media ‘psychologists’ who have no idea how their information is landing, whose eyes are reading, whose ears are listening or whose brain is processing their ‘advice’. Aside from X (Twitter), which is 17+, all other social media apps are rated for age 12+ and that's not based on content but on the need for an adult's siganture on the legal agreement. Is it wise for adults to be openly sharing their mass market ‘t****a’ so impersonally and haphazardly? Is this the ultimate example of iatrogenesis in action?
‘What would we expect to find if we steeped a generally healthy population in a tea of unnecessary mental health treatments? Unprecedented iatrogenic effects. With that in mind, please meet the rising generation.’ The last paragraph of Chapter 1, setting the tone for the remaining 11 chapters of Shrier’s argument.
Which brings me on to the upward lip curl moment when I turned to Chapter 6 - ‘Trauma Kings’, a chapter centred on the explosion of ‘childhood t****a’. Bessel Van Der Kolk, Dr Gabor Mate and the queen of mass market ‘t****’ one-size-fits-all-doesn’t-care-about-the-individual, “buy my book” and sign up to my echo chamber online ‘community’ - ‘Dr’ Nicole Lepera, each receive honourable mention. Shrier refers to them as the 'T****a Salesmen’. [Those words about Dr Lepera are mine, FYI, not Shriers.] She presents information to counter their research about the ‘body keeping the score’, the myth of ‘normal’, and ‘parentification’, which are at best flawed, and may even be ‘a PR campaign in search of a product.’ She draws on Van Der Kolk’s research in the 90s about repressed memory and how it was debunked, and how it is being rolled out again to suit the 2020s. During the Working with T****a course I attended, the lecturer (a woman who has worked with women affected by rape and abuse and has over 40 years experience), mentioned that going into the past is not always the best option (see Babette Rothschild) so this resonates with me. Incidentally, the lecturer, with her wealth of knowledge and experience was challenged by a student with damp skin behind her ears, who had been told on her course that this wasn't true. Van der Kolk and Mate were on the reading list for that course but as the course was firmly positioned within the big 'T' space and the unfathomable abuse that the majority of middle class parents (including Shrier), and most social media users are unlikely privvy to (see my two examples at the start of this), suggests these 'professionals' have taken something that belongs in the therapy room and brought it into everyday life. Even worse, to children who don’t need it, to adults who don’t question it - normalizing it, and making ‘t****a’ self-diagnosing, and easy to identify with and label.
I shudder to think where I might have ended up had this information been swimming around, easily accessible in the palm of my hand. I might not have maintained or added to my resilient spirit or had the confidence to dust myself off and try again.
‘In the universe of trauma-loving psychologists, diagnoses proliferate and blame-shifting grinds on.’
The most shocking part about the book was her investigations into the use of questionnaires and surveys being used by schools. If I was a teacher I would be horrified at being asked to participate in dishing them out to pupils. It is happening in Scotland, and if I was a parent I'd be concerned. It's an abuse of power and if Shrier's research is to be used, is potentially doing more harm than good. Children's brains shouldn't be picked at to form future policy or future 'behaviour change', or to plant seeds that were unsown.
Staying in school, Shrier airs her concerns about the adoption of the ACES scale, Social Emotional Learning, and ‘restorative justice’ in schools. She is of the opinion that schools are treating every child as if they are ‘irreparably broken’ and incapable. She claims that educators who do throw resilience out there, do it from the perspective of ‘helping kids to build resilience’ which she argues isn’t something you help kids do, rather ‘it’s a process that occurs on its own, through the normal course of facing life’s challenges and surmounting them.’
This is when I need to remind myself that her research refers to the ‘worriers, the lonely, the lost, and sad’, and not the ones who really need help to regulate their emotions and control their behavior. Children and young adults do still need guidance on how to handle themselves, but without being told what to do explicitly, or with interference from an overprotective, meddling adult. Adolescents shouldn't be running to adults to solve their problems, and certainly not to engage in nefarious use of 'restorative justice'. They do still need safe, reliable, trustworthy adults during the adolescent brain development years 12-25 to guide them to help them problem solve and make better choices for themselves. Something 'Emotion Coaching' can be utilised for - more on that in the follow up to this in my next journal entry.
I wish this book didn’t have to exist, but I’m glad it does because sadly it appears it has to. We need to counteract the coddling of children and young people, and as a society, we need to do better at giving children and young people opportunities to thrive, to grow and to innovate, to be strong, to think for themselves and to contribute – all of them. We need to recognise that ‘t****a’ has largely been minimised in the mainstream and is being used as a tool to sell books which is great for the publishing houses. Not so great for those who never needed it in the first place, or who shouldn’t be going it alone, secluded with nothing more than a flat device and words on a screen from perfect strangers.
To peace and prosperity,
Jaxx x
Comentários