It’s seems important to note that the work of therapy—of good therapy—isn’t to find pathology and disappear. It’s very much the opposite of that. It’s making meaning of your life and your symptoms. It’s about coming to accept your humanness, your humanity, to laugh at your flaws, and get out of your head, finding an internal sense of freedom so that you can engage deeply in relationships.
Freya often mentions the "therapy culture" refering to what you mean (If I understand you correctly). I also believe that this is a good label to distinguish between what therapy is supposed to be (and has been for many many people!), and what many people, particularly the Gen Z, actually do under the label of therapy or attachment style or whatsoever. Still important not to mistake these two and not to blame real therapy, psychology, psychoanalyse, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, etc. for how some people misuse them!
There's no such a thing as "real therapy". The pillars of it lacks reproducibility which is the sole base of the scientific method. Thus, the difference between "real" and "therapy culture" is based on your own biases which will change and evolve overtime, according the extenar factors and stimulus you are being bombarded with.
Your comment is actually reinforcing the message of the article: you've just built another label "real".
In the contrary, conductism and modern psychology aims to diagnose and treat through a system that might be far from perfect and will have its flaws, but it's not trying to understand your context to provide explanations about perceptions, but rather solving problems.
I emphatically agree with what you said. Two things, Allen Schore uses the divided brain research to emphasize the importance of the right hemisphere in therapy. Working from that perspective is very difficult to understand(bring into being). Good therapists understand. The second thing is most graduate students of psychology are not among the high IQ grad students. Philosophy and economics are but analytic philosophy destroys any hope for holistic thinking. The intimidation of complex theories lead most psychology grad students into a subservient relationship with analytical thinking, quashing the right hemisphere. I think DSM 5 is a curse on humanity!
Kinda funny that finally, someone else (except Andrew Huberman) also quotes Allan Schore. I myself do that quite often and Schore’s book "the right brain psychotherapy" is now literally in my bookshelf in my room :)
“High IQ”? What does this mean? People who score highly on one very specific measure invented by other people who also score highly on the same measure. There are other kinds of intelligence, but for some reason they’re not the holy grail in the way IQ is held up to be.
And analytical thinking - is that what you think therapists need above all? I suspect most people in therapy would rate emotional intelligence far higher.
Maybe I wasn’t being clear. Carl Jung said he would be present with a patient for some time before he used any analytic reasoning. He recognized the uniqueness of each individual. Analytical thinking is dangerous if done by someone not adequately grounded. Sri Aurobindo warned against Jnana yoga in his book “The Synthesis of Yoga” where the use of analytical thinking is used in the spiritual realm. He asserted that a very high level of intelligence is needed in Jnana yoga if one is to avoid sinking into madness. I have known academic philosophers who claim an IQ of no less than 150 is necessary to do philosophy competently. Since I take the view that philosophy that does not place wisdom at its heart/center is pseudo-philosophy it is only natural that I would see psychology as the practical side of wisdom centered philosophy. Human behavior is part of the grounding but the philosophical framing is of utmost importance. Most psychologists fail to deeply appreciate that fact.
I left out the most important thing with this comment. Being able to be present in a holistic sense does NOT depend on IQ or more generally intelligence. Virtually all three year old children do that naturally without being taught. Some adults retain that ability throughout their lives. People in the arts are much more likely to do that than people who choose a career in a STEM field. I believe, but do not have research to prove, that clinical psychologists are more likely than average to have that ability. The ability to appreciate the philosophical aspects of this ability does depend on intelligence. But it is also true that people who do philosophy competently tend to be loners who find interacting with the general public to be an emotional strain. Since clinical psychology demands the ability to interact with the general public, it is unlikely that deeply philosophically inclined individuals will be over represented among them.
Hear hear. More and more in my practice these days it seems that the initial work in therapy is to ‘de-therapize’ people, to decouple them from the expectations of therapy (set by culture(s)) before the actual work of therapy can be done.
In my classes we spend a great deal discussing therapy from a historical and cultural perspective. I am happy to report that most students are themselves uncomfortable with how society has been trending, in its view of mental health specifically and ‘humanness’ in general, and are eager for something new. Maybe a return to traditional views or maybe to progress, but just something different.
To me, a veteran of the therapy system with only recent success, our society as a whole is missing half the conversation. Yes, therapists are there to provide assistance to those trying to resolve past emotions/events *that are preventing them from living a full life today.* The honest patient is trying to improve their experience of the world, not trying to bury themselves (and their personality) in pathologies.
The patient has to be there and be willing to meet with the therapist to discuss their true obstacles to happiness. Together the two figure out the best path forward for the patient, and the patient takes that home with them and *does the work* to implement those changes into their life. The goal of self-awareness is to live a fuller life, be able to pursue closer relationships with other humans, find purpose in life, and become themselves authentically.
I think this post references the ‘typical’ view of therapy in American society: it’s a badge or a sticker, an accomplishment to be checked off a list. I’ve been to therapy, so that should make me happier. Does it matter that I didn’t bring all of me along with true effort to the appointments? Does it matter that between appointments I didn’t spare any attention for how my thoughts work, or how I might be sabotaging myself in this world? I tried, didn’t I?
True therapy, the kind that works, has a patient who shows up just as much as the therapist. (Of course, not all therapists show up, because therapists are human, too. You have to find the right one to meet you where you are, to hear you being you, and helping you reflect on that.) It is supposed to be the therapist that brings the knowledge of the human experience found through research and science to the conversation. If you bring your true experience, your true feelings, and seek out knowledge on your own as well as from your therapist, you can become a person who appreciates this world more fully.
I cannot tell you enough about the stories I’ve read about successful therapy bringing peace to the client through understanding of why they’ve done the things they’ve done in the past. Actions they may have put up to ‘character flaws’ and blamed themselves for over the years may have an explanation rooted in pathology. These explanations are not meant to absolve us for our sins, they are meant to help us understand how our brain works in order to develop strategies to allow us to be the person we want to be. If we can all get over ourselves and show up with empathy and compassion for other people, should that not have a positive effect on society?
The problem is not that therapists are ruining the world, although they certainly aren't blameless, but rather, as Christopher Lasch noted, that the language of therapy has overridden every other area of life. We see somebody who is assertive and the word that comes to mind is "narcissist"; a person with particularities is "OCD."
It’s true there are a lot of bad therapists out there. But the good ones tend to treat the whole person and aren’t all that interested in symptoms and diagnoses. They understand that insight, depth and relationship are important to our humanity. Neo capitalism in general and insurance companies in particular have brought a culture of “efficiency” with the thought that we can treat symptoms separate from the person and that has trickled down to therapy training programs, therapists, and now individuals who identify as their symptoms and diagnoses. It’s a mess.
> It’s true there are a lot of bad therapists out there. But the good ones tend to treat the whole person and aren’t all that interested in symptoms and diagnoses.
All 3 of them?
This is getting in 'No true Scotsman' territory, but it's like 1 in a 100 that is like what you describe. And even they are problematic. It's not just some bad apple therapists, it's the culture of therapy, and this goes all the way into what we're teaching therapists and into the DSM itself.
Have you read Claudia M. Gold? Pediatrician who practices in a whole person manner, by being present with the parents of her young patients (I highly recommend her book, The Silenced Child). She understands the needs of the system…not diagnosing, but listening, attunement, and human care. Wonderful to read her.
Joanna Moncrieff is another find. She does research on the harms of anti depressants. Her style, and manner: caring and warm.
There are many other human-led professionals in the field. There always have been, as you suggest. There is a growing cohort now, even as therapy-culture takes over the internet. Many of the comments in this post’s threads make me feel hopeful - from people who breathe and live in the contextual sphere. We understand ourselves and others as messy and lovely creatures on earth. We seek to meet and experience others in our lives from that stance, whether in our personal or professional lives.
Many therapists I know understand this and live and work with this combination of openness and presence, as well as discernment. So, although I viscerally reject current constant-labeling trends (and compartmentalization of a whole person) and I have great concern of its life partner, medicalization, I continue to be hopeful that this societal-trend will turn a corner and begin to dismiss the diagnosing and pathologizing culture at a greater scale and return to a more balanced view of what it means to be human.
I have several professional/personal meetings a week with like-minded clinicians. It appears you know many too. These meetings and relationships are evidence of a humanity-return trend, as we’re often having this similar conversation.
Good to find like-minded people here on Substack! Are you a member of the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAn)? It’s all about bringing back the values of depth, insight, and relationship to therapy.
Self-diagnosis is the first form of diagnosis *when* it is actually a diagnosis and not just a "cool trend" to be followed. The "self diagnosis" I'm talking about is not actually a diagnosis, it's kids and adults alike applying themselves a label just because it's the current trend.
Same! People go online and take a five-question quiz, label themselves a certain disorder, find everything they can on that particular mental health issue on TikTok, put it in their social bios, and embrace that label... which probably isn't even a true diagnosis. I think it's helpful to identify traits that might make one's life harder than it need be, to be diagnosed professionally so that one may better oneself, but I agree with you that most self-diagnosis these days is just a trend. (If that all makes sense lol)
So good and hits every note. This has been the field I loved for 25 years. Yet, in the last 5 years, I watched it devolve into something I barely recognize.
Long time therapist friends and I try to piece together what happened. Our interest in the human psyche and the poignancy of the human condition devolved into a field that has created an epidemic of excessive diagnoses and obsession with dysfunction and trauma.
Boundaries are hardened, protective walls rather than sturdy, internal roots that help us weather storms.
Friends are labeled and canceled without notice. "Protecting my peace" is a social media meme that devolves into an avoidance of conflict and difficult conversations.
Parental estrangement is at an all time high and entire "good enough" families and the people who inhabit them are fractured, broken-hearted and drowning in a sea of armchair diagnoses by therapists who've never met them.
(A secret insiders know is that often, therapists themselves are conflict avoidant and not always skilled at wrangling through relationship difficulties in real time).
We are deeply interconnected and find our way through our shared humanity not by diagnosing it, but by engaging it through conversation, music, gardening, walks, play, sport, poetry and art.
The examined life was not meant to devolve into a bundle of isolated, avoidant, screen addicted individuals with reductive diagnoses.
Good on you, Freya for being a countercultural voice in your generation. You give me hope.
re: trying to piece together what has happened, are you familiar with Dr. Iain McGilchrist? His research on the divided brain and its impact on our culture goes a lonnnggg way to explaining how we got here. Based on your response here, I think you would find his work and its implications extremely edifying. He is best known for his two masterpeices The Master and His Emissary and The Matter With Things, but interviews of him are also abundant online. Really worth digging into.
So interesting you mention him. I'd never heard of him. Then, a few months back, I had a dream and the name "Iain McGilchrist"
showed up as a sign above my grandson's head. It was so random that I looked it up to see if he was real. Tuned out he is a person so I perused my recent podcasts to see if he'd been mentioned. Nope. I've never had an experience like this.
Turned out he lives in Skye, one of my favorite places in Scotland. Then I find out about his work and became intrigued. I bought the book and have been listening to it on Audible. Also follow him here on Substack and have listened to his interviews. As you say, they're abundant online. I ended up referencing him in my teaching.
I hadn't made the connection you make here so it makes me want to get back to the book and his work.
What a cool story! Sounds like you are being called to study his work.😊 Did you see his interview with Jordan Peterson? I found it fascinating, though Peterson isn't to everyone's taste. But they covered a lot of ground.
When I was a therapist, I’d set the stage by saying that the point of this is so that one day, they stop seeing me. It doesn’t mean life will be easier or bad things won’t happen. It does mean that they’ll be better equipped to move through life, as messy as it can be.
Therapy culture = capitalism. Hijacked by people who have pathologized themselves into a “coaching” career where they WANT people to be “fucked” up so they have clients, hence all the IG posts and tik tok videos and the “therapeutic” language they use. They live outside of the guardrails of the professional job, free to advertise and say whatever, do whatever. Professional therapists, even the bad ones, we’re accountable to some extent.
They’ve also boxed themselves in. They’ve become the “issue” they claim to want to help people with as it’s what they’ve hitched their financial well-being to.
I once had a wise man point out to me that he doesn’t do more advertising or outreach because he doesn’t want to put out into the world people getting hurt so that he can have clients. He’d rather be like a doctor or a professional therapist, someone you reach out to when needed, if you broke a toe, you went through a traumatic experience. You go see them, get treated, then move on.
For all of this recent culture of the old ways suck, sure seems like people are realizing that yeah, old systems need to be reworked, but maybe, just maybe, having official guardrails in place, having elders to mentor/supervisor, having limits and boundaries, having experts, having many years of experience, may not all be a bad thing.
A good therapist helps you process what life throws at you. I agree Jo-Ann. A good therapist also never wants to see you again once you’ve learned how to process.
I support Ms Finkelstein's answer and would add the following. I am a retired relationship (Marriage and Family Therapist). The health system and insurance imposes the DSM diagnoses on people. As a client, you have the choice to accept that therapy is meant to work out your concerns(not mine) - or accept a label that someone provides to you. My caveat is I also believe social media promotes pathological labeling and inclusion which isn't necessary to believe or, to practice as a therapist. I won't digress to the unethical way insurance companies promote 'illness'. Not all therapist are made alike so find one who cares about you and helps you find your way of doing life!
I agree with the overall need for mystery, but I also think people are afraid to truly know themselves today. That requires knowledge beyond medical labels, which can help but are only the start. The world has been minutely commodified and people don't want to admit they have been too, which the diagnoses can contribute to if one doesn't look further inward. It's like this: my therapist helped me realize and decide for myself that I was the child of immature parents, but she didn't say that defined me. It was one piece of the puzzle. I also have PTSD; another significant puzzle piece but not completely me.
Individuality is how we react or relate to circumstances or demographics or genetics or anything we have no control over; embracing the lack of control by identifying with our circumstances and not our choices is how we get commodity-people willing to be boxed and labeled by corporations. When we are afraid to identify ourselves with our choices and take responsibility for ourselves, we will sometimes be afraid to do more than label ourselves as having problems that prevent us from taking responsibility. The constant adding of labels becomes a way to set aside self-knowledge, not an opportunity to see what's inside the box.
This has been the field I loved for 25 years. Yet, in the last 5 years, I watched it devolve into something I barely recognize.
Long time therapist friends and I try to piece together what happened. Our interest in the human psyche, meaning and the poignancy of the human condition devolved into an online field that has created an epidemic of excessive diagnoses and obsession with dysfunction and trauma.
Boundaries are hardened, protective walls rather than sturdy, internal roots that help us weather storms.
Friends are labeled and canceled without notice. "Protecting my peace" is a social media meme that devolves into an avoidance of conflict and difficult conversations.
Parental estrangement is at an all time high and entire "good enough" families and the people who inhabit them are fractured, broken-hearted and drowning in a sea of armchair diagnoses by therapists (many of them online) who've never met them. Grandchildren are kept from the powerful bonds with their grandparents.
(A secret insiders know is that often, therapists themselves are conflict avoidant and not always skilled at wrangling through relationship difficulties in real time).
We are deeply interconnected and find our way through our shared humanity not by diagnosing it, but by engaging it through meaning making, conversation, music, gardening, walks, play, sport, poetry and art.
The examined life was not meant to devolve into a bundle of isolated, avoidant, screen addicted individuals with reductive diagnoses.
Grateful for Freya as a countercultural voice in her generation. She gives me hope.
I agree. I find that many clients are coming to therapy to be “fixed” rather than to identify and express themselves more authentically. It seems like we are not supposed to be quirky, and everything is pathologized. This post summed up something I have been trying to articulate and felt extremely validating.
This is so true. The good professionals (therapists, healers) I've encountered are doing this and very much not what we see on IG/Tiktok. And the therapists I know who do engage in this kind of "therapy speak" are, low and behold, actually inhibiting people.
Beautiful piece. In the age of artificial intelligence, lean into authentic humanity. We are not data to be harvested or products to be consoomed. Creating and nurturing new life is the best thing you will ever do. No need to overthink it with demoralizing therapy.
"Creating and nurturing new life is the best thing you will ever do. No need to overthink it"
Seek not the horizon. Curiosity killed the cat. Your place in the kitchen is important enough, little lady. Don't overthink, just accept your lot in life! Be grateful for what is given to you and ignore those who do the opposite while calling themselves your betters. 🤮🤮🤮
Is that how we should "subvert subversion", "Yuri Bezmenov" (a defected Soviet journalist dead since 1993)?
There needs to be a happy medium between the extremes of knowledge and ignorance. I’m immersed in communities that can be extremely resistant to any sort of therapy speak/mental health stuff (religious/conservative/homeschool communities), and I daily see people (especially kids, but sometimes adults) who are clearly struggling, but the social pressure around them is to resist doctors, diagnoses, and medication. The secular culture may have gone too far, but religious communities still have a long way to go.
Thank you, this is along the lines of what I came here to say. There needs to be an in-between. As a young parent I have found it necessary to get curious about myself and go inward for the sake of my relationship with my kids. I literally WAS having trauma responses when my toddler was displaying typical toddler defiance - I would find myself seeing red and acting totally illogically, to the detriment of my connection with him.
I never wanted this. It went against everything I wanted to be as a parent. But I couldn’t just “make myself stop”. I DID have a dysregulated nervous system. That’s a real phenomenon - it’s part of our design. And the reason why our ancestors didn’t have to know about it in order to be happy and well-adjusted is because they had so many physically regulating activities (chopping wood, laundry by hand, etc) built into their daily lives that we don’t anymore. Going inward and untangling the knots within myself, correcting harmful beliefs I picked up in challenging times and was living by only semi-consciously - all of that has freed me to be present and to just live and experience!!
Where a lot of people go wrong is making that knowledge the end goal, and letting corporations profit along the way, as Freya says. But I don’t believe the knowledge itself is wrong. If a disturbing pattern keeps showing up, it’s a good idea to look deeper. I don’t believe God designed us to be mysteries to ourselves. We don’t need “experts”, we just need grace and the willingness to look at ourselves honestly.
Sophia Arredondo, you made an excellent point! I especially appreciate this line: "And the reason why our ancestors didn’t have to know about it in order to be happy and well-adjusted is because they had so many physically regulating activities (chopping wood, laundry by hand, etc) built into their daily lives that we don’t anymore." This is profoundly true. Basic survival of the tribe meant all doing their part in tandem with each other. The physical work alone would have mitigated a lot of the "internal dialogue" and made things make sense. Survival! Bless you, Wendy
Ya, I don't agree with this at all. Firstly there is no doubt that secular culture has gone too far, not as you worded it 'may have gone to far', it has gone way too far. Secondly churches and religion has gotten so woke in the last decade there is now a complete revival to Orthodox Christianity as opposed to the Woke crap that churches are offering, all about subjective feelings.
Ok, and? I’m not talking about churches who have gone “woke” (whatever that means anymore), I’m talking about people who are still so conservative that most of the women still think they can’t wear pants. I stand by what I said.
I understand as well. I myself have chosen to stay unmedicated for my clinical depression, despite my doctor’s urging (my reasoning, however, is because for me medication would be a band-aid, and not addressing the root issue). However, I’ve seen so many people who believe it’s purely a “sin matter” or a case of “not believing enough” to be incredibly frustrated on behalf of friends who genuinely need some form of medication and are shamed into not even seeking help.
Don’t know you, miss, but you are brave and on the right track. Read, read, read. Poetry and philosophy, especially the ancients. Before psychiatry became du jour life was still lived and many wonderful people lived before us. Meet them on your own terms. Good luck.
As Anäis Nin said in her diary, obsessive introspection is cancerous.
“We taught a generation that the meaning of life is not found outside in the world but inside their own heads.”
I’ve been suspecting that most of my existential confusion lately is because of the pervasiveness of trying to explain everything without actually living and experiencing. I kind of lost sense of the rhythm and romance in my life for a while. I felt terrified at the thought of being stereotyped, labeled, or even become a caricature since lately it seems like everyone is doing that.
This therapeutic obsession isn’t just flattening individuality; it’s fueling a culture of narcissism. By constantly analyzing ourselves through the lens of pathology, we’re training people to see their every mood, quirk, or inconvenience as a grand, central drama. Instead of developing resilience or curiosity about others, we become fixated on self-diagnosis, endlessly scrutinizing how we feel and how others make us feel.
With six decades of undiagnosed ADHD behind me, I can tell you truly: I was not secretly loved for never arriving on time. Rather, I was openly scorned and seen as inappropriate, uncaring and self-indulgent.
This “brutal knowing” you mention — it’s a brand new discovery for you, but life’s always been brutal for me. And what was the most brutal was that I didn’t have any way of understanding why I am not only constantly late but also disaster prone and emotionally out of control.
It seems it’s more comfortable for you to think of me as a lovable, humored eccentric, when I’m actually a disturbing, disliked outsider.
It's interesting that the 'labels' mentioned in the article are not 'therapy speak' but medical diagnoses conducted by highly-trained specialist medical Drs - and often more than one is involved.
It makes me wonder if any of these self-diagnosed 'experts' have similar opinions about those with physical 'labels' or are they just too hard to dismiss?
Nothing makes money faster online than spreading hate, demeaning others' lived experiences and fringe conspiracy theories. 🙄
I agree with the thesis, but I think it’s important not to sanitize the lives of our grandparents. To long to return to a time when abuse and trauma stayed behind closed doors would be a mistake. There needs to be some way forward that restrains the excesses of therapy culture without pushing dysfunction into the shadows again.
Well said. We shouldn’t trivialize our nuances and complexities, and we *definitely* shouldn’t diminish others with a simple label. But we also shouldn’t ignore clear patterns that can help us navigate trauma and stress.
I have found that by giving myself for the sake of others, I have discovered more of myself than I ever did by focusing solely on myself. It's almost as if Jesus was onto something.
So true. The happiest time of my life was when I was busy caring for babies and young children. I had no time to think into anything else! Prior to that time and since that time I have been medicated for bipolar disorder (successfully). But at that time of my life I did fine unmedicated. I’m sure someone can look at this story and find a psychological term to suggest that my happiness in that stage of my life was evidence of dysfunction.
Oh yay, another hot take. Nothing mentioned about the multitude of people who find self acceptance from their efforts in therapy. The people who have been treated as other by those considered 'normal'. Nothing about how capitalism has made people increasingly anxious and neurotic because there is no room to be free, to explore. And of course nothing about what happened to people who struggled with their mental health pre 1980s, institutionalized, lobotomized, and families who made up excuses with accidents.
What a bizarre and out of touch article. Anyone neurodivergent can tell you that our flaws aren't described "lovingly". We're mocked and ostracized and marginalized. The labels help the few understanding people to be a little more empathetic. Clearly you are not one of those understanding people.
Oh well, your loss, neurodivergent people are way more fun to spend time with, and all you have to do is deal with someone being late or saying something awkward every now and then. Meanwhile, talking to a normal person, we have to deal with you talking about the weather every time we see you, and hearing about your insanely shallow hobbies that you barely know anything about.
We have to empathize with your faults because it's all we hear about. Meanwhile, mainstream culture calls our faults immoral or inhuman or disrespectful or rude.
Agree with you completely. The author is obviously speaking from a place of privilege. Perhaps she should read my article on high masking as an autistic woman and the toll it took on me.
She’s bizarre because she’s a completely out of touch conservative Christian obsessed with the now widely academically derided CS Lewis but is masquerading as a ‘voice of a generation’. I want to know what Christian thinktanks / organisations are obviously paying her to do this ‘work’…. !!! It’s all very dark.
I get what you are saying, everything in our culture seems to get “over done” and the diagnosis seems to often become an excuse for bad behavior. However as someone in their 60s that grew up in a world that didn’t have psychological language to describe these conditions it was a godsend to find out that I wasn’t alone and could actually work on them. I wasn’t allowed to be depressed, my anxiety was just me acting stupid or lazy. I learned to keep things to myself and to self soothe while thinking I was broken or crazy.
Some of this post and comments make me want to retreat back into my shell, realizing that if i verbalize my issues i will be considered superficial or being overly dramatic. I think passing judgement on others pain isn’t helpful and is why I can’t talk to family members about my issues.
Can you name a specific example where it's used as an excuse? Every time someone says that they just refer to a vague idea of it happening. I've never experienced it or seen it happen anywhere. Where and when has someone used it as an excuse? And why isn't it a *reason*?
I'm neurodivergent, and so I have spent my life being baffled by people's need to talk about nothing important. Apparently humans have social needs - something I didn't know because my social needs are very low and society refuses to state out loud that humans need to talk.
Is their need to blab at me and excuse for their behavior, or a reason? From my perspective it's an excuse, because the behavior annoys me. From their perspective, it's a reason, because if they don't talk they will go mad.
It seems to me that you have a good understanding of yourself and of the societial norms which you diverge from. Now you just need to forgive everyone for not being exactly like you.
I will once y'all admit to it. Small talk is a way for people with high social needs to take advantage of people with low social needs, and it's something we do in America because we lack community. Admit it.
I think that can be true but can also be a way for people to engage with others that they don’t know or know well when staying silent is awkward or perceived as rude. The trick is to realize that other person is not interested. My son is like that, he needs lots of space so if he isn’t responding to what I am saying I move on and leave him alone. We all need to read others social cues.
Agreed. Unfortunately if you say "why are you talking to me", a genuine question, people take it as "why are YOU talking to me", a personal attack. Had to learn that the hard way. People suck.
No offense, but ... No. Just No. Does everyone have a diagnosis of some type or another? Probably not. Yet for those that do, you advocate and suggest they stick their head in the sand and let it be a "mystery." No thanks. Knoweldge, and self-knowledge is important. Your path, if taken by those of us with actually different physical charactericts (Autism/ADHD) is the road to madness, feeling permanent estranged and depression and/or suicide.
It’s worth saying that some of us were always neurodivergent, we were just called “gifted and talented” or “anxious” or “reactive,” and shared experiences and labels can sometimes help you come home to yourself.
Is there nostalgia for the black sheep of the family? Knowing “what” you are can be incredibly helpful for accepting *who* you are, because most people haven’t viewed our idiosyncrasies (and frankly, recognized disabilities) so fondly. That said, it’s important we don’t get stuck there, and instead realize we are more than that.
The suggestion that we, as a generation might go back to blindly having children makes me nervous, particularly as the economic landscape (and literal earth) changes beneath our feet. Many of us have taken time to examine our cultural conditioning, a luxury not afforded to our mothers, who spent their entire lives taking care of other people, often overworked and burnt out.
The onset of smart phone culture comes with so many issues—from the header image I thought this post might touch on the homogenization of women’s faces—but the silver lining is that some people who always felt like too much, and simultaneously never enough, finally get to understand why. And we have access to so many life experiences we get to decide which ones ultimately feel like us.
The Anxious Generation is an excellent book on the impact of a phone based culture on Gen Z. Highly recommend it.
A diagnosis doesn’t erase your humanity, to me, it helps me understand it. For years, people were labeled “difficult,” “lazy,” or “finicky” without any real explanation. A clinical label doesn’t take away the warmth of being your mamma’s child, it actually gives you a framework to understand why you might move through the world differently. A diagnosis can bring RELIEF. It gives language to struggles that were once dismissed as character flaws. I really feel it can help connect people to others and help them feel less alone.
It’s seems important to note that the work of therapy—of good therapy—isn’t to find pathology and disappear. It’s very much the opposite of that. It’s making meaning of your life and your symptoms. It’s about coming to accept your humanness, your humanity, to laugh at your flaws, and get out of your head, finding an internal sense of freedom so that you can engage deeply in relationships.
I wonder how many people exhibiting these behaviours are actually in therapy and how much are just reading/watching stuff online and self-diagnosing.
Freya often mentions the "therapy culture" refering to what you mean (If I understand you correctly). I also believe that this is a good label to distinguish between what therapy is supposed to be (and has been for many many people!), and what many people, particularly the Gen Z, actually do under the label of therapy or attachment style or whatsoever. Still important not to mistake these two and not to blame real therapy, psychology, psychoanalyse, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, etc. for how some people misuse them!
yes! real therapy > therapy culture
That's not saying much. tHe rEAl ThERapY is not much to write home about.
I disagree. Real therapy has helped me tremendously over the past 3 years. It's hard to even put into words.
Surviving a real suicicde attempt is like being hit by a truck. It takes weeks to physically recover, and far longer to emotionally recover.
There is insight, however, to your claim. I firmly believe you have to find the right therapist for you. The first one might not be the best one.
I am sorry you haven't found the right situation, or worse, have given up. Good luck out there.
There's no such a thing as "real therapy". The pillars of it lacks reproducibility which is the sole base of the scientific method. Thus, the difference between "real" and "therapy culture" is based on your own biases which will change and evolve overtime, according the extenar factors and stimulus you are being bombarded with.
Your comment is actually reinforcing the message of the article: you've just built another label "real".
In the contrary, conductism and modern psychology aims to diagnose and treat through a system that might be far from perfect and will have its flaws, but it's not trying to understand your context to provide explanations about perceptions, but rather solving problems.
I emphatically agree with what you said. Two things, Allen Schore uses the divided brain research to emphasize the importance of the right hemisphere in therapy. Working from that perspective is very difficult to understand(bring into being). Good therapists understand. The second thing is most graduate students of psychology are not among the high IQ grad students. Philosophy and economics are but analytic philosophy destroys any hope for holistic thinking. The intimidation of complex theories lead most psychology grad students into a subservient relationship with analytical thinking, quashing the right hemisphere. I think DSM 5 is a curse on humanity!
Kinda funny that finally, someone else (except Andrew Huberman) also quotes Allan Schore. I myself do that quite often and Schore’s book "the right brain psychotherapy" is now literally in my bookshelf in my room :)
“High IQ”? What does this mean? People who score highly on one very specific measure invented by other people who also score highly on the same measure. There are other kinds of intelligence, but for some reason they’re not the holy grail in the way IQ is held up to be.
And analytical thinking - is that what you think therapists need above all? I suspect most people in therapy would rate emotional intelligence far higher.
Maybe I wasn’t being clear. Carl Jung said he would be present with a patient for some time before he used any analytic reasoning. He recognized the uniqueness of each individual. Analytical thinking is dangerous if done by someone not adequately grounded. Sri Aurobindo warned against Jnana yoga in his book “The Synthesis of Yoga” where the use of analytical thinking is used in the spiritual realm. He asserted that a very high level of intelligence is needed in Jnana yoga if one is to avoid sinking into madness. I have known academic philosophers who claim an IQ of no less than 150 is necessary to do philosophy competently. Since I take the view that philosophy that does not place wisdom at its heart/center is pseudo-philosophy it is only natural that I would see psychology as the practical side of wisdom centered philosophy. Human behavior is part of the grounding but the philosophical framing is of utmost importance. Most psychologists fail to deeply appreciate that fact.
I left out the most important thing with this comment. Being able to be present in a holistic sense does NOT depend on IQ or more generally intelligence. Virtually all three year old children do that naturally without being taught. Some adults retain that ability throughout their lives. People in the arts are much more likely to do that than people who choose a career in a STEM field. I believe, but do not have research to prove, that clinical psychologists are more likely than average to have that ability. The ability to appreciate the philosophical aspects of this ability does depend on intelligence. But it is also true that people who do philosophy competently tend to be loners who find interacting with the general public to be an emotional strain. Since clinical psychology demands the ability to interact with the general public, it is unlikely that deeply philosophically inclined individuals will be over represented among them.
Hear hear. More and more in my practice these days it seems that the initial work in therapy is to ‘de-therapize’ people, to decouple them from the expectations of therapy (set by culture(s)) before the actual work of therapy can be done.
In my classes we spend a great deal discussing therapy from a historical and cultural perspective. I am happy to report that most students are themselves uncomfortable with how society has been trending, in its view of mental health specifically and ‘humanness’ in general, and are eager for something new. Maybe a return to traditional views or maybe to progress, but just something different.
To me, a veteran of the therapy system with only recent success, our society as a whole is missing half the conversation. Yes, therapists are there to provide assistance to those trying to resolve past emotions/events *that are preventing them from living a full life today.* The honest patient is trying to improve their experience of the world, not trying to bury themselves (and their personality) in pathologies.
The patient has to be there and be willing to meet with the therapist to discuss their true obstacles to happiness. Together the two figure out the best path forward for the patient, and the patient takes that home with them and *does the work* to implement those changes into their life. The goal of self-awareness is to live a fuller life, be able to pursue closer relationships with other humans, find purpose in life, and become themselves authentically.
I think this post references the ‘typical’ view of therapy in American society: it’s a badge or a sticker, an accomplishment to be checked off a list. I’ve been to therapy, so that should make me happier. Does it matter that I didn’t bring all of me along with true effort to the appointments? Does it matter that between appointments I didn’t spare any attention for how my thoughts work, or how I might be sabotaging myself in this world? I tried, didn’t I?
True therapy, the kind that works, has a patient who shows up just as much as the therapist. (Of course, not all therapists show up, because therapists are human, too. You have to find the right one to meet you where you are, to hear you being you, and helping you reflect on that.) It is supposed to be the therapist that brings the knowledge of the human experience found through research and science to the conversation. If you bring your true experience, your true feelings, and seek out knowledge on your own as well as from your therapist, you can become a person who appreciates this world more fully.
I cannot tell you enough about the stories I’ve read about successful therapy bringing peace to the client through understanding of why they’ve done the things they’ve done in the past. Actions they may have put up to ‘character flaws’ and blamed themselves for over the years may have an explanation rooted in pathology. These explanations are not meant to absolve us for our sins, they are meant to help us understand how our brain works in order to develop strategies to allow us to be the person we want to be. If we can all get over ourselves and show up with empathy and compassion for other people, should that not have a positive effect on society?
The problem is not that therapists are ruining the world, although they certainly aren't blameless, but rather, as Christopher Lasch noted, that the language of therapy has overridden every other area of life. We see somebody who is assertive and the word that comes to mind is "narcissist"; a person with particularities is "OCD."
It’s true there are a lot of bad therapists out there. But the good ones tend to treat the whole person and aren’t all that interested in symptoms and diagnoses. They understand that insight, depth and relationship are important to our humanity. Neo capitalism in general and insurance companies in particular have brought a culture of “efficiency” with the thought that we can treat symptoms separate from the person and that has trickled down to therapy training programs, therapists, and now individuals who identify as their symptoms and diagnoses. It’s a mess.
> It’s true there are a lot of bad therapists out there. But the good ones tend to treat the whole person and aren’t all that interested in symptoms and diagnoses.
All 3 of them?
This is getting in 'No true Scotsman' territory, but it's like 1 in a 100 that is like what you describe. And even they are problematic. It's not just some bad apple therapists, it's the culture of therapy, and this goes all the way into what we're teaching therapists and into the DSM itself.
Agreed!
Have you read Claudia M. Gold? Pediatrician who practices in a whole person manner, by being present with the parents of her young patients (I highly recommend her book, The Silenced Child). She understands the needs of the system…not diagnosing, but listening, attunement, and human care. Wonderful to read her.
Joanna Moncrieff is another find. She does research on the harms of anti depressants. Her style, and manner: caring and warm.
There are many other human-led professionals in the field. There always have been, as you suggest. There is a growing cohort now, even as therapy-culture takes over the internet. Many of the comments in this post’s threads make me feel hopeful - from people who breathe and live in the contextual sphere. We understand ourselves and others as messy and lovely creatures on earth. We seek to meet and experience others in our lives from that stance, whether in our personal or professional lives.
Many therapists I know understand this and live and work with this combination of openness and presence, as well as discernment. So, although I viscerally reject current constant-labeling trends (and compartmentalization of a whole person) and I have great concern of its life partner, medicalization, I continue to be hopeful that this societal-trend will turn a corner and begin to dismiss the diagnosing and pathologizing culture at a greater scale and return to a more balanced view of what it means to be human.
I have several professional/personal meetings a week with like-minded clinicians. It appears you know many too. These meetings and relationships are evidence of a humanity-return trend, as we’re often having this similar conversation.
Good to find like-minded people here on Substack! Are you a member of the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAn)? It’s all about bringing back the values of depth, insight, and relationship to therapy.
Love this. Will check them out.
Was rushing before but wanted to thank you for those names. I will look up Claudia and Joanna!
It's the self-diagnosis that irks me.
Self-diagnosis is the oldest form of diagnosis. Nothing wrong with it per se. "Know thyself" and everything.
Kind of like you can know if you have a cold (and many other aillments) without someone having to diagnose you.
It's the vocabulary and the mindset of the diagnosis that's the problem. And it's still a problem when a "professional therapist" does it.
Self-diagnosis is the first form of diagnosis *when* it is actually a diagnosis and not just a "cool trend" to be followed. The "self diagnosis" I'm talking about is not actually a diagnosis, it's kids and adults alike applying themselves a label just because it's the current trend.
Same! People go online and take a five-question quiz, label themselves a certain disorder, find everything they can on that particular mental health issue on TikTok, put it in their social bios, and embrace that label... which probably isn't even a true diagnosis. I think it's helpful to identify traits that might make one's life harder than it need be, to be diagnosed professionally so that one may better oneself, but I agree with you that most self-diagnosis these days is just a trend. (If that all makes sense lol)
My therapist was never on board with all the “labels” and didn’t believe in them. She’s a top therapist.
So good and hits every note. This has been the field I loved for 25 years. Yet, in the last 5 years, I watched it devolve into something I barely recognize.
Long time therapist friends and I try to piece together what happened. Our interest in the human psyche and the poignancy of the human condition devolved into a field that has created an epidemic of excessive diagnoses and obsession with dysfunction and trauma.
Boundaries are hardened, protective walls rather than sturdy, internal roots that help us weather storms.
Friends are labeled and canceled without notice. "Protecting my peace" is a social media meme that devolves into an avoidance of conflict and difficult conversations.
Parental estrangement is at an all time high and entire "good enough" families and the people who inhabit them are fractured, broken-hearted and drowning in a sea of armchair diagnoses by therapists who've never met them.
(A secret insiders know is that often, therapists themselves are conflict avoidant and not always skilled at wrangling through relationship difficulties in real time).
We are deeply interconnected and find our way through our shared humanity not by diagnosing it, but by engaging it through conversation, music, gardening, walks, play, sport, poetry and art.
The examined life was not meant to devolve into a bundle of isolated, avoidant, screen addicted individuals with reductive diagnoses.
Good on you, Freya for being a countercultural voice in your generation. You give me hope.
re: trying to piece together what has happened, are you familiar with Dr. Iain McGilchrist? His research on the divided brain and its impact on our culture goes a lonnnggg way to explaining how we got here. Based on your response here, I think you would find his work and its implications extremely edifying. He is best known for his two masterpeices The Master and His Emissary and The Matter With Things, but interviews of him are also abundant online. Really worth digging into.
So interesting you mention him. I'd never heard of him. Then, a few months back, I had a dream and the name "Iain McGilchrist"
showed up as a sign above my grandson's head. It was so random that I looked it up to see if he was real. Tuned out he is a person so I perused my recent podcasts to see if he'd been mentioned. Nope. I've never had an experience like this.
Turned out he lives in Skye, one of my favorite places in Scotland. Then I find out about his work and became intrigued. I bought the book and have been listening to it on Audible. Also follow him here on Substack and have listened to his interviews. As you say, they're abundant online. I ended up referencing him in my teaching.
I hadn't made the connection you make here so it makes me want to get back to the book and his work.
What a cool story! Sounds like you are being called to study his work.😊 Did you see his interview with Jordan Peterson? I found it fascinating, though Peterson isn't to everyone's taste. But they covered a lot of ground.
https://youtu.be/gN09qnHhPKA?si=vpmhqdU7DCDQ2hEu
Well said. Thank you.
When I was a therapist, I’d set the stage by saying that the point of this is so that one day, they stop seeing me. It doesn’t mean life will be easier or bad things won’t happen. It does mean that they’ll be better equipped to move through life, as messy as it can be.
Therapy culture = capitalism. Hijacked by people who have pathologized themselves into a “coaching” career where they WANT people to be “fucked” up so they have clients, hence all the IG posts and tik tok videos and the “therapeutic” language they use. They live outside of the guardrails of the professional job, free to advertise and say whatever, do whatever. Professional therapists, even the bad ones, we’re accountable to some extent.
They’ve also boxed themselves in. They’ve become the “issue” they claim to want to help people with as it’s what they’ve hitched their financial well-being to.
I once had a wise man point out to me that he doesn’t do more advertising or outreach because he doesn’t want to put out into the world people getting hurt so that he can have clients. He’d rather be like a doctor or a professional therapist, someone you reach out to when needed, if you broke a toe, you went through a traumatic experience. You go see them, get treated, then move on.
For all of this recent culture of the old ways suck, sure seems like people are realizing that yeah, old systems need to be reworked, but maybe, just maybe, having official guardrails in place, having elders to mentor/supervisor, having limits and boundaries, having experts, having many years of experience, may not all be a bad thing.
End rant 😂
A good therapist helps you process what life throws at you. I agree Jo-Ann. A good therapist also never wants to see you again once you’ve learned how to process.
Excellently said. Both/and thinking is needed as an antidote to pathology culture
I support Ms Finkelstein's answer and would add the following. I am a retired relationship (Marriage and Family Therapist). The health system and insurance imposes the DSM diagnoses on people. As a client, you have the choice to accept that therapy is meant to work out your concerns(not mine) - or accept a label that someone provides to you. My caveat is I also believe social media promotes pathological labeling and inclusion which isn't necessary to believe or, to practice as a therapist. I won't digress to the unethical way insurance companies promote 'illness'. Not all therapist are made alike so find one who cares about you and helps you find your way of doing life!
I agree with the overall need for mystery, but I also think people are afraid to truly know themselves today. That requires knowledge beyond medical labels, which can help but are only the start. The world has been minutely commodified and people don't want to admit they have been too, which the diagnoses can contribute to if one doesn't look further inward. It's like this: my therapist helped me realize and decide for myself that I was the child of immature parents, but she didn't say that defined me. It was one piece of the puzzle. I also have PTSD; another significant puzzle piece but not completely me.
Individuality is how we react or relate to circumstances or demographics or genetics or anything we have no control over; embracing the lack of control by identifying with our circumstances and not our choices is how we get commodity-people willing to be boxed and labeled by corporations. When we are afraid to identify ourselves with our choices and take responsibility for ourselves, we will sometimes be afraid to do more than label ourselves as having problems that prevent us from taking responsibility. The constant adding of labels becomes a way to set aside self-knowledge, not an opportunity to see what's inside the box.
This has been the field I loved for 25 years. Yet, in the last 5 years, I watched it devolve into something I barely recognize.
Long time therapist friends and I try to piece together what happened. Our interest in the human psyche, meaning and the poignancy of the human condition devolved into an online field that has created an epidemic of excessive diagnoses and obsession with dysfunction and trauma.
Boundaries are hardened, protective walls rather than sturdy, internal roots that help us weather storms.
Friends are labeled and canceled without notice. "Protecting my peace" is a social media meme that devolves into an avoidance of conflict and difficult conversations.
Parental estrangement is at an all time high and entire "good enough" families and the people who inhabit them are fractured, broken-hearted and drowning in a sea of armchair diagnoses by therapists (many of them online) who've never met them. Grandchildren are kept from the powerful bonds with their grandparents.
(A secret insiders know is that often, therapists themselves are conflict avoidant and not always skilled at wrangling through relationship difficulties in real time).
We are deeply interconnected and find our way through our shared humanity not by diagnosing it, but by engaging it through meaning making, conversation, music, gardening, walks, play, sport, poetry and art.
The examined life was not meant to devolve into a bundle of isolated, avoidant, screen addicted individuals with reductive diagnoses.
Grateful for Freya as a countercultural voice in her generation. She gives me hope.
Oh wow yes! My daughter and I talked about this just the other day. What happened to just “people”? Like you said, people not diagnoses…
I would only add: "Knowledge... does not guarantee goodness or courage or love. ... What does satisfy is being known." --Curt Thompson, MD
I agree. I find that many clients are coming to therapy to be “fixed” rather than to identify and express themselves more authentically. It seems like we are not supposed to be quirky, and everything is pathologized. This post summed up something I have been trying to articulate and felt extremely validating.
This is so true. The good professionals (therapists, healers) I've encountered are doing this and very much not what we see on IG/Tiktok. And the therapists I know who do engage in this kind of "therapy speak" are, low and behold, actually inhibiting people.
👏
Beautiful piece. In the age of artificial intelligence, lean into authentic humanity. We are not data to be harvested or products to be consoomed. Creating and nurturing new life is the best thing you will ever do. No need to overthink it with demoralizing therapy.
I would only add: "Knowledge... does not guarantee goodness or courage or love. ... What does satisfy is being known." --Curt Thompson, MD
"Creating and nurturing new life is the best thing you will ever do. No need to overthink it"
Seek not the horizon. Curiosity killed the cat. Your place in the kitchen is important enough, little lady. Don't overthink, just accept your lot in life! Be grateful for what is given to you and ignore those who do the opposite while calling themselves your betters. 🤮🤮🤮
Is that how we should "subvert subversion", "Yuri Bezmenov" (a defected Soviet journalist dead since 1993)?
*consumed
There needs to be a happy medium between the extremes of knowledge and ignorance. I’m immersed in communities that can be extremely resistant to any sort of therapy speak/mental health stuff (religious/conservative/homeschool communities), and I daily see people (especially kids, but sometimes adults) who are clearly struggling, but the social pressure around them is to resist doctors, diagnoses, and medication. The secular culture may have gone too far, but religious communities still have a long way to go.
Thank you, this is along the lines of what I came here to say. There needs to be an in-between. As a young parent I have found it necessary to get curious about myself and go inward for the sake of my relationship with my kids. I literally WAS having trauma responses when my toddler was displaying typical toddler defiance - I would find myself seeing red and acting totally illogically, to the detriment of my connection with him.
I never wanted this. It went against everything I wanted to be as a parent. But I couldn’t just “make myself stop”. I DID have a dysregulated nervous system. That’s a real phenomenon - it’s part of our design. And the reason why our ancestors didn’t have to know about it in order to be happy and well-adjusted is because they had so many physically regulating activities (chopping wood, laundry by hand, etc) built into their daily lives that we don’t anymore. Going inward and untangling the knots within myself, correcting harmful beliefs I picked up in challenging times and was living by only semi-consciously - all of that has freed me to be present and to just live and experience!!
Where a lot of people go wrong is making that knowledge the end goal, and letting corporations profit along the way, as Freya says. But I don’t believe the knowledge itself is wrong. If a disturbing pattern keeps showing up, it’s a good idea to look deeper. I don’t believe God designed us to be mysteries to ourselves. We don’t need “experts”, we just need grace and the willingness to look at ourselves honestly.
Sophia Arredondo, you made an excellent point! I especially appreciate this line: "And the reason why our ancestors didn’t have to know about it in order to be happy and well-adjusted is because they had so many physically regulating activities (chopping wood, laundry by hand, etc) built into their daily lives that we don’t anymore." This is profoundly true. Basic survival of the tribe meant all doing their part in tandem with each other. The physical work alone would have mitigated a lot of the "internal dialogue" and made things make sense. Survival! Bless you, Wendy
Ya, I don't agree with this at all. Firstly there is no doubt that secular culture has gone too far, not as you worded it 'may have gone to far', it has gone way too far. Secondly churches and religion has gotten so woke in the last decade there is now a complete revival to Orthodox Christianity as opposed to the Woke crap that churches are offering, all about subjective feelings.
Ok, and? I’m not talking about churches who have gone “woke” (whatever that means anymore), I’m talking about people who are still so conservative that most of the women still think they can’t wear pants. I stand by what I said.
I understand as well. I myself have chosen to stay unmedicated for my clinical depression, despite my doctor’s urging (my reasoning, however, is because for me medication would be a band-aid, and not addressing the root issue). However, I’ve seen so many people who believe it’s purely a “sin matter” or a case of “not believing enough” to be incredibly frustrated on behalf of friends who genuinely need some form of medication and are shamed into not even seeking help.
Don’t know you, miss, but you are brave and on the right track. Read, read, read. Poetry and philosophy, especially the ancients. Before psychiatry became du jour life was still lived and many wonderful people lived before us. Meet them on your own terms. Good luck.
As Anäis Nin said in her diary, obsessive introspection is cancerous.
“We taught a generation that the meaning of life is not found outside in the world but inside their own heads.”
I’ve been suspecting that most of my existential confusion lately is because of the pervasiveness of trying to explain everything without actually living and experiencing. I kind of lost sense of the rhythm and romance in my life for a while. I felt terrified at the thought of being stereotyped, labeled, or even become a caricature since lately it seems like everyone is doing that.
Do you mind sharing what volume this was written in? I borrowed one of her diaries from the library recently. 🥰
This therapeutic obsession isn’t just flattening individuality; it’s fueling a culture of narcissism. By constantly analyzing ourselves through the lens of pathology, we’re training people to see their every mood, quirk, or inconvenience as a grand, central drama. Instead of developing resilience or curiosity about others, we become fixated on self-diagnosis, endlessly scrutinizing how we feel and how others make us feel.
Resilience is SO important!
No thanks for the patronizing erasure.
With six decades of undiagnosed ADHD behind me, I can tell you truly: I was not secretly loved for never arriving on time. Rather, I was openly scorned and seen as inappropriate, uncaring and self-indulgent.
This “brutal knowing” you mention — it’s a brand new discovery for you, but life’s always been brutal for me. And what was the most brutal was that I didn’t have any way of understanding why I am not only constantly late but also disaster prone and emotionally out of control.
It seems it’s more comfortable for you to think of me as a lovable, humored eccentric, when I’m actually a disturbing, disliked outsider.
Thank you. What a dumb article.
THANK YOU!
It's interesting that the 'labels' mentioned in the article are not 'therapy speak' but medical diagnoses conducted by highly-trained specialist medical Drs - and often more than one is involved.
It makes me wonder if any of these self-diagnosed 'experts' have similar opinions about those with physical 'labels' or are they just too hard to dismiss?
Nothing makes money faster online than spreading hate, demeaning others' lived experiences and fringe conspiracy theories. 🙄
Agree. This article must be written from a place of extreme privilege.
I agree with the thesis, but I think it’s important not to sanitize the lives of our grandparents. To long to return to a time when abuse and trauma stayed behind closed doors would be a mistake. There needs to be some way forward that restrains the excesses of therapy culture without pushing dysfunction into the shadows again.
Well said. We shouldn’t trivialize our nuances and complexities, and we *definitely* shouldn’t diminish others with a simple label. But we also shouldn’t ignore clear patterns that can help us navigate trauma and stress.
I have found that by giving myself for the sake of others, I have discovered more of myself than I ever did by focusing solely on myself. It's almost as if Jesus was onto something.
This! That Jesus, pretty smart guy for sure😉
So true. The happiest time of my life was when I was busy caring for babies and young children. I had no time to think into anything else! Prior to that time and since that time I have been medicated for bipolar disorder (successfully). But at that time of my life I did fine unmedicated. I’m sure someone can look at this story and find a psychological term to suggest that my happiness in that stage of my life was evidence of dysfunction.
In the future, everyone will be autistic for fifteen minutes.
According to the newest DSM 6 social anxiety is now autism!
https://www.thaliascomedy.com/p/nerds-are-autistic-in-new-dsm-6?r=25eb6q
And the issue with that would be....?
I think the (brilliant) joke went over your head...
"It's impossible to heal from being human." So beautifully put.
But there is a sick correlary: only by being inhuman can some feel cured.
Oh yay, another hot take. Nothing mentioned about the multitude of people who find self acceptance from their efforts in therapy. The people who have been treated as other by those considered 'normal'. Nothing about how capitalism has made people increasingly anxious and neurotic because there is no room to be free, to explore. And of course nothing about what happened to people who struggled with their mental health pre 1980s, institutionalized, lobotomized, and families who made up excuses with accidents.
Fucking hot takes.
What a bizarre and out of touch article. Anyone neurodivergent can tell you that our flaws aren't described "lovingly". We're mocked and ostracized and marginalized. The labels help the few understanding people to be a little more empathetic. Clearly you are not one of those understanding people.
Oh well, your loss, neurodivergent people are way more fun to spend time with, and all you have to do is deal with someone being late or saying something awkward every now and then. Meanwhile, talking to a normal person, we have to deal with you talking about the weather every time we see you, and hearing about your insanely shallow hobbies that you barely know anything about.
We have to empathize with your faults because it's all we hear about. Meanwhile, mainstream culture calls our faults immoral or inhuman or disrespectful or rude.
Agree with you completely. The author is obviously speaking from a place of privilege. Perhaps she should read my article on high masking as an autistic woman and the toll it took on me.
She’s bizarre because she’s a completely out of touch conservative Christian obsessed with the now widely academically derided CS Lewis but is masquerading as a ‘voice of a generation’. I want to know what Christian thinktanks / organisations are obviously paying her to do this ‘work’…. !!! It’s all very dark.
I get what you are saying, everything in our culture seems to get “over done” and the diagnosis seems to often become an excuse for bad behavior. However as someone in their 60s that grew up in a world that didn’t have psychological language to describe these conditions it was a godsend to find out that I wasn’t alone and could actually work on them. I wasn’t allowed to be depressed, my anxiety was just me acting stupid or lazy. I learned to keep things to myself and to self soothe while thinking I was broken or crazy.
Some of this post and comments make me want to retreat back into my shell, realizing that if i verbalize my issues i will be considered superficial or being overly dramatic. I think passing judgement on others pain isn’t helpful and is why I can’t talk to family members about my issues.
Can you name a specific example where it's used as an excuse? Every time someone says that they just refer to a vague idea of it happening. I've never experienced it or seen it happen anywhere. Where and when has someone used it as an excuse? And why isn't it a *reason*?
I'm neurodivergent, and so I have spent my life being baffled by people's need to talk about nothing important. Apparently humans have social needs - something I didn't know because my social needs are very low and society refuses to state out loud that humans need to talk.
Is their need to blab at me and excuse for their behavior, or a reason? From my perspective it's an excuse, because the behavior annoys me. From their perspective, it's a reason, because if they don't talk they will go mad.
It seems to me that you have a good understanding of yourself and of the societial norms which you diverge from. Now you just need to forgive everyone for not being exactly like you.
I will once y'all admit to it. Small talk is a way for people with high social needs to take advantage of people with low social needs, and it's something we do in America because we lack community. Admit it.
I think that can be true but can also be a way for people to engage with others that they don’t know or know well when staying silent is awkward or perceived as rude. The trick is to realize that other person is not interested. My son is like that, he needs lots of space so if he isn’t responding to what I am saying I move on and leave him alone. We all need to read others social cues.
Agreed. Unfortunately if you say "why are you talking to me", a genuine question, people take it as "why are YOU talking to me", a personal attack. Had to learn that the hard way. People suck.
No offense, but ... No. Just No. Does everyone have a diagnosis of some type or another? Probably not. Yet for those that do, you advocate and suggest they stick their head in the sand and let it be a "mystery." No thanks. Knoweldge, and self-knowledge is important. Your path, if taken by those of us with actually different physical charactericts (Autism/ADHD) is the road to madness, feeling permanent estranged and depression and/or suicide.
It’s worth saying that some of us were always neurodivergent, we were just called “gifted and talented” or “anxious” or “reactive,” and shared experiences and labels can sometimes help you come home to yourself.
Is there nostalgia for the black sheep of the family? Knowing “what” you are can be incredibly helpful for accepting *who* you are, because most people haven’t viewed our idiosyncrasies (and frankly, recognized disabilities) so fondly. That said, it’s important we don’t get stuck there, and instead realize we are more than that.
The suggestion that we, as a generation might go back to blindly having children makes me nervous, particularly as the economic landscape (and literal earth) changes beneath our feet. Many of us have taken time to examine our cultural conditioning, a luxury not afforded to our mothers, who spent their entire lives taking care of other people, often overworked and burnt out.
The onset of smart phone culture comes with so many issues—from the header image I thought this post might touch on the homogenization of women’s faces—but the silver lining is that some people who always felt like too much, and simultaneously never enough, finally get to understand why. And we have access to so many life experiences we get to decide which ones ultimately feel like us.
The Anxious Generation is an excellent book on the impact of a phone based culture on Gen Z. Highly recommend it.
this article suffers greatly from looking backwards instead of forwards. it could've been a good post if it weren't so.
A diagnosis doesn’t erase your humanity, to me, it helps me understand it. For years, people were labeled “difficult,” “lazy,” or “finicky” without any real explanation. A clinical label doesn’t take away the warmth of being your mamma’s child, it actually gives you a framework to understand why you might move through the world differently. A diagnosis can bring RELIEF. It gives language to struggles that were once dismissed as character flaws. I really feel it can help connect people to others and help them feel less alone.
Well said! 🎯👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼