The Therapeutic Culture

In one of my earlier blogs, I praised David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, for the original stances he takes regarding the human condition.  However, in a recent article he published in the Times, Hey, America, Grow Up, he derides what he calls the “therapeutic culture.” He points out how this culture, gave rise to a coddling approach to handling stressors, in citing the work done by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, the authors of The Coddling of the American Mind. 

I agree with Brooks’ description of “safety spaces,” where students can go when they feel they are in a hostile environment, as an overreaction.  This has to do with the coddling that Lukianoff and Haidt allude to in their book.  But hasn’t the helicopter parent also served in reinforcing the daintiness of the young?  There are cultural forces behind these movements but they are hardly the result of what I, as a psychologist, and my fellow professionals are teaching our clients.  On the contrary, with both my female and male clients, very often my goal is to help them become more assertive, not more timid.

I agree full heartedly when Brooks writes about how contemporary culture reinforces a sense of victimization in which people do not feel empowered but rather helpless within a hostile environment.  Nevertheless, there are still people that have been traumatized and indeed are victims of either emotional or physical abuse.  Once more, the goal of therapy is not to assist these people in thriving in whatever trauma they suffer, but rather to help them overcome the past by confronting the trauma through exposure.   The mechanism in helping a client recover from trauma has little to do with coddling.  Moreover, the goal of the treatment is to have the client look at him/herself as a survivor and not a victim.

The therapeutic culture did not create the pandemic, the source of much alienation and psychic pain in us all, especially, our youth.  One of the repercussions of the pandemic was to magnify the deleterious impact of social media on adolescents that, like the rest of us, had to stay isolated from our peers.   Comparing oneself to “ideal” others posted on social media was particularly harmful to female adolescents whose time was spent on Instagram or TikTok.  On these sites, they gazed upon doctored “perfect pictures” that made them feel less desirable to themselves and others.

As I write this, I see more clearly that my main beef with Brooks is that he is attaching the word therapeutic to cultural trends that are in fact not therapeutic at all.  The increased use of social media, the pandemic, and overprotecting our youth actually run counter to what I would consider therapeutic.  I believe these three occurrences within our society weakened have impeded the development and increased the level of depression and anxiety among both young and old.  I and other practitioners are frequently called upon to enhance the self-worth of our clients so they can more bravely face the everyday vagaries and hazards that befall them.

It is unfortunate that Brooks has conflated “therapeutic” with issues related to coddling, victimization and the creation of safe spaces.  Ironically, after being coddled and overprotected, clients need my profession to aid them in regaining their self-confidence and learning skills, such as assertive behavior, in effectively countervailing these cultural trends.